Fiat Auto continued its highly impressive year-long sales run during September and ended the month as the best performing carmaker right across Europe, up by 14.6 percent year-on-year while all of its bigger rivals remained virtually static or fell. The Fiat brand was up by 19.3 pct year-on-year, Alfa Romeo was also well up, by 10.4 pct, although the Lancia division showed some decline, down by 9.8 pct. The data, covering the 23 European Union member nations plus the EFTA signatories, were released by European automotive manufacturer trade body ACEA this morning,

Fiat Auto shifted 94,540 units last month to record their 14.6 pct year-on-year rise, and while Fiat was shining - thanks again in a big part to the Grande Punto's performance - almost all its rivals were stagnating. The overall market (1,406,515 units last month compared to 1,444,008 in September 2005) was down by 2.6 pct year-on-year while the only gainers were VW/Audi (271,581 units), Europe's biggest carmaking group, up 2.2 pct, Toyota (83,539 units), up by 12.1 pct, and BMW Group (84,740 units) up by 2.4 pct. The big losers included Nissan, who lost 22.6 pct, Renault, down by 14.2 pct, General Motors who shed 9.0 pct and PSA Peugeot-Citroën, who lost 3.7 pct. The other major carmakers were virtually unchanged, Ford Europe (-0.1 pct) and DaimlerChrysler (-0.8 pct).

Fiat Auto's 14.6 pct rise during September (94,540 units compared to 82,462 in September 2005) saw their overall European market share climb by a full percentage point year-on-year to 6.7 pct.
 

The Fiat brand was up 19.3 pct (74,463 units as opposed to 62,432 in September 2005); Alfa Romeo was up 10.4 pct (11,257 units as opposed to 10,195 in September 2005); while Lancia slipped, losing 9.8 pct (8,512 units compared to 9,435 in September 2005) mainly due to customers preferring to wait for the New Ypsilon model. This pushed the Fiat brand's share of the pan-European market up from 4.3 to 5.3 pct year-on-year, while Alfa Romeo was up 0.1 pct to 0.8 pct, and Lancia was down 0.1 pct to 0.6 pct.

For the first nine months of 2006 Fiat Auto has sold 893,240 new vehicles, up by 17.8 pct on last year's total of 758,371 unit registrations achieved in this period. By the end of September Alfa Romeo had sold 111,993 cars (101,553  in Jan-Sep 2005) to record a rise of 10.3 pct year-on-year, and Lancia, with 91,093 vehicles registered (compared to 93,495 in Jan-Sep 2005), were down by 2.6 pct. Fiat Auto has a 7.5 pct share of all European sales so far this year, up 1.1 pct year-on-year. The Fiat brand is up 5.7 pct year-on-year while the Alfa Romeo (0.9 pct) and Lancia (0.8 pct) divisions, see their market shares remain unchanged.