With 73,285 of its vehicles registered, the Fiat Group managed to outperform a severely falling Italian new car market last month, and was able to raise its share of all sales year-on-year from 31.37 to 51.51 per cent.

With 73,285 of its vehicles registered, the Fiat Group managed to outperform a severely falling Italian new car market last month, and was able to raise its share of all sales year-on-year from 31.31 to 31.57 per cent.

With 232,207 new vehicles being registered in Italy last month, the total market was down 7.26 per cent year-on-year, although Fiat Group was able to slightly reduce this fall, down 6.50 per cent. The data was issued by UNRAE.

Of the 73,285 vehicles registered by Fiat Group in January, the Fiat brand (including Abarth and Fiat Professional) was the best performer, in particular driven by demand for the new 500 model which accounted for over 10,000 unit sales.  With 60,130 vehicles, the Fiat brand was down just 0.41 per cent year-on-year. With 9,508 sales during January, Lancia shed 5.98 per cent year-on-year and Alfa Romeo, a month into a two-month shutdown of its main factory near Naples, saw 3,456 of its cars being registered, a year-on-year drop of 55.38 per cent.

The Fiat brand raised its Italian market share year-on-year last month from 24.11 to 25.89 per cent, Lancia was up from 4.04 to 4.09 per cent, while Alfa Romeo dropped from 3.09 to 1.49 per cent. Of Fiat’s specialist brands, Ferrari sold 92 of its sports cars (up 10.84 per cent year-on-year) while Maserati, with 99 registrations and buoyed by strong demand for the new GranTurismo, was up 41.43 per cent.

As usual, the Grande Punto was the best-selling car on the Italian market, with 19,784 units sold last month, followed by the Panda (15,651), with the other representatives of Fiat Group Automobiles in the top-ten being the 500 (10,597) in fourth and Lancia’s Ypsilon in seventh (5,745). The Punto was also Italy’s best selling diesel model, with 8,987 units being diesel specified.

While the Panda and Punto topped A- and B-segments in Italy respectively last month, the Bravo (4,257) was third in a very tightly fought C-segment. The Alfa 159 (1,731) was fourth in D-segment, which was impressively topped by the newly-facelifted Croma (2,113). The Sedici (1,851) was the best-seller in the small SUV category, the Musa (3,540) was best-selling small MPV, while in the LCV class the Doblò (574) was in its usual position on top of the pile.