Fiat did well across the categories last month, the Panda topped A-segment, while the Punto and Bravo sat astride B- and C-segments respectively, and the Alfa Romeo 159, with its factory now fully operational again after a refit, returned to the top of D-segment.

Fiat Group outperformed a falling Italian new car market during April; with 67,871 new registrations the national carmaker finished the month 1.5 pct up year-on-year and took a 33.64 pct share of sales in its domestic market.

The Italian new car market saw 201,844 registrations last month, 2.86 pct down on last April's total of 207,777 units, which leaves the market down 8.25 pct for the first four months of 2008. Fiat Group rode the downturn well, its 67,871 units registered during April was 1.5 pct and almost exactly one thousand units up on the same period last year.

With 53,130 units the Fiat brand (including the Fiat Professional and Abarth divisions) was up 1.67 pct to take a 26.32 pct share of the market in April; Lancia, with 8,919 registrations was down 4.02 pct and took a 4.42 pct market share, while Alfa Romeo with 5,693 units registered bounced back after the temporary closure of its main factory and was up 8.71 pct, to take a 2.82 pct share of all Italian sales last month.

After the first four months of the year the Fiat Group has racked up 275,441 unit sales, and is down 8.6 pct year-on-year. The Fiat brand has 221,852 registrations for the year-to-date and is down 3.85 pct year-on-year, Lancia is on 36,389 (-12.53 pct), while Alfa Romeo is on 16,559 (-42.05 pct). For the year to date the Fiat Group has taken 31,77 pct of all sales on the Italian market; the Fiat brand has a 25.58 pct for the year-to-date, Lancia is on 4.20 pct and Alfa Romeo on 1.91 pct.

The Fiat Punto (including the Punto and Grande Punto models combined) retained its long-running top spot on the Italian market last month, selling a further 18,021 units. The Panda (12,256) was second, the 500 (9,237) third, and Lancia's Ypsilon (5,911) sixth. Making it four Fiat Group Automobiles' models in the top ten was the Bravo (4,434) in tenth place. For the year-to-date the Punto accounts for 71,131 unit registrations, the Panda (54,778) is in second, the 500 (35,211) is on place further back, the Ypsilon (24,264) is fifth, and the Bravo (20,499) is the ninth best seller. The Punto was also Italy's best selling diesel car last month with 8,854 registrations, and is also in first place amongst the market's oil burners for the year-to-date (30,914).

Fiat did well across the categories last month, the Panda topped A-segment, while the Punto and Bravo sat astride B- and C-segments respectively, and the Alfa Romeo 159 (2,631), with its factory now fully operational again after a refit, returned to the top of D-segment, and has 7,765 units sales for the year-to-date. In the other categories the Croma (1,846) was second amongst the station wagons, the Sedici (964) was second in the class reserved for small SUVs, the Multipla (1,463) was third amongst MPVs, and the Doblò (630) was top of Multispace.