Of the FGA brands, Fiat (including Fiat Professional and Abarth) was the big winner in January, driven upwards as demand for the Fiat 500 spreads right across Europe. 92,295 registrations during January, put it up 6.7 pct year-on-year.

Fiat Group Automobiles has opened the year well, turning in an impressive sales growth performance right across Europe during January, despite several major hurdles, including a falling domestic market and the temporary closure of Alfa Romeo's Pomigliano d'Arco factory. The overall European market remained relatively flat year-on-year according to figures released today by automotive trade body ACEA.

In Europe (EU27 + EFTA), 0.3 pct less cars were registered than in January last year, with 1,308,761 units compared to 1,312,131 in 2007. The mild decrease was due to a slightly weaker market in the EU15 (-1.6 pct) whereas the new Member States remained dynamic (+20.1 pct). Since the number of working days in January 2008 was the same in the whole region as in 2007, except for Bulgaria, which had one more day, no calendar effect occurred.

From the five major markets in Western Europe, only Germany registered more cars than last year, with a 10.5 pct increase. While a rise in VAT contributed to an unusually weak 2007, the German market did however register in January the second highest sales volume in the last five years. British registrations went down by 2.1 pct, French by 5.6 pct, Italian by 7.3 pct and Spanish by 12.7 pct. This may be due to the global credit crunch, impacting spending and confidence. Almost half of the EU15 countries saw their registrations decrease.

The new Member States remained on a positive trend. For the fourth month in a row, their registrations went up by more than 10 pct, reaching 20.1 pct this month. The most dynamic market was Lithuania, which registered the biggest increase with 55.2 pct more cars than in January 2007, followed by Slovakia (+36.6 pct), Romania (34.5 pct) and Poland (24.6 pct). In absolute figures, the four leading markets clearly are Romania, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, which all registered over 10,000 new passenger cars, and close to 30,000 in the case of Romania and Poland.

Fiat Group Automobiles (FGA) turned in a very solid performance during January helped by strong gains across Europe outside its home market, including Germany (+33.4 pct), France (+43.6 pct), Portugal (+26.2 pct), Czech Republic (+27.2 pct), Holland (+11.9 pct), Finland (+50.2 pct), Belgium (+64.8 pct), Spain (+20.3 pct), Sweden (+40.5 pct) and Ireland (+12.8 pct), all nations where Fiat made significant impact.

FGA recorded 111,896 registrations across Europe last month, down 0.9 pct on last January's figure of 111,896, narrowing slightly its share of the overall European market from 8.6 to 8.5 pct. However, despite a string of mitigating factors, including a contracting home market, the closure of Alfa Romeo's main factory near Naples and the uncertainly late last year as to whether Italian state incentives for low polluting cars would be renewed, FGA came out very well.

Only Europe's biggest carmaker, VW Group, outperformed Fiat of its larger rivals last month, and the Germany firm (which includes the Audi and SEAT brands) was up by just 0.6 pct, its showing helped by a domestic market which rose more than 10 pct. Europe's second largest carmaker PSA Peugeot-Citroën lost 3.2 pct while Ford (- 3.5 pct) and GM (-8.1 pct) both lost much ground. After the first month of the year Fiat Group has now leapfrogged Renault into fifth place, with 111,896 registrations for Fiat compared to 108,650 for the French outfit who have been stabilised by a 73.8 pct year-on-year rise by its low cost Dacia brand.

Of the FGA brands, Fiat (including Fiat Professional and Abarth) was the big winner in January, driven upwards as demand for the Fiat 500 spreads right across Europe. 92,295 registrations during January, put it up 6.7 pct year-on-year (86,520 in January 2007). Lancia, its fortunes always so closely tied to the Italian market, saw 10,942 registrations, down 7.2 pct year-on-year (11,790 in January 2007), while Alfa Romeo, slowed dramatically by a shutdown of its main factory for a major upgrade, saw 8,014 registrations, down 42.8 pct (14,014 in January 2007). This all means that the Fiat brand's share of the European market leapt from 6.6 to 7.1 pct year-on-year, while Lancia went from 0.9 to 0.8 pct, and Alfa Romeo slipped from 1.1 to 0.6 pct.