Fiat Automóveis - the autonomous Brazilian arm of Fiat Group Automobiles - has just announced its sales for the first four months of the year and with sales up an impressive 27.2 percent on the same period of last year, the carmaker has accounted for one in every four car and light commercial sales this year.

Fiat's great success on the Brazilian market has come mainly in the compact category with Palio, in the compact sedan and station wagon category, with Siena and Palio Weekend, and in the light pick-up category with the Strada. With its penetration of these segments, Fiat Automóveis is now hatching ambitious plans to take the brand into higher market segments and compete with more prestigious and established brands. Fiat believes that it now in the best position to achieve success in the two segments that that are currently seeing the biggest year-on-year growth in the Brazilian new car market at present, namely the compact premium and medium sized 4 door sedan categories.

In the compact premium category, which is at present best represented by the Citroen C3, Peugeot 206, VW Polo and Honda Fit, the number of sales of that segment were around 200,000 units in 2006, while in the medium sized 4 door sedan, where the Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic and Chevrolet Vectra hold sway as the most competitive models, the total sales were around 100,000 units during the same year. The compact premium and the medium sized 4 door sedan category thus are the two new targets for Fiat Automóveis in the Brazilian market, the competitors however are strong, are established and have a greater tradition.
 

However Fiat is busy looking these more profitable market segments with great interest. The Grande Punto, which has been a huge sales success in Europe, and Linea, just launched last month, are the models which will be launched this year in Brazil to fill out these vacant space for the Italian brand, and besides the recent market failure of the Marea and Fiat’s general lack of tradition in the upper segments of the market, Fiat has now has a great chance to be very successful, as these two models are already attracting much attention from the national media and amongst potential customers.

The Grande Punto is expected to be launched next June, with the new 1.9 16v FLEX (gas and alcohol fuel in different proportions) engine that will be offered in Linea as well. In the base version the Grande Punto could be offered with the 1.3 16v Multijet Flex as a more suitable powerplant alternative to the compact segment. The target market share is being proposed by Fiat to be around 13 percent for both the Linea and for Grande Punto in their respective market’s segment.

by Claudio Perlini