With 87,635 registrations in February Fiat Group consolidated its position as the fourth best selling car making group in Europe, and last month putting more daylight between itself and GM and Renault both of which it has leapfrogged this year. Fiat Group's overall market share climbed to 9.1 pct, an 0.2 pct year-on-year rise. The data was released on Friday by automotive manufacturer trade body ACEA.

In February, 968,159 new passenger cars were registered in Europe (EU27+ETFA), 18.3 pct less compared to the same month of 2008. The downturn was more marked in the new EU Member States (-30.3 pct) than in Western Europe (-17.3 pct), where the German market pushed aggregate registrations upward. There was on average one working day less across Europe in February.

Two months into the year, the European market was down 22.6 pct compared to January-February last year. In Western Europe, a total of 902,037 new passenger cars was registered in February (-17.3 pct). Germany stood out with a 21.5 pct growth, carried by strong demand in certain market segments following the recent motor vehicle tax reform and scrapping bonus introduced by the German government. Except for Luxembourg (+0.3 pct), all other countries faced a downturn, varying from -83.6 pct in Iceland to -13.2 pct in France. The downturn of the French market was cushioned by fleet renewal incentives as well. Major markets such as the UK (-21.9 pct), Italy (-24.4 pct) and Spain (-48.8 pct ) again recorded an important decrease. From January to February, new passenger car registrations in Western Europe dropped by 22.0 pct. Only Germany posted growth during that period (+4.0 pct) .The French market declined by 10.6 pct, followed by the British (-28.2 pct), Italian (-28.5 pct) and Spanish (-45.5 pct) markets.

In the new EU Member States, passenger car registrations fell by 30.3 pct in February, with mixed individual country results. Poland registered the most cars (30,194) and improved last year’s performance by 7.3 pct. Other major markets were down with 7.7 pct (Czech Republic), 46.4 pct (Hungary) and 66.5 pct (Romania). Looking at the cumulative figures from January to February, Poland ranked first in absolute numbers with 56,841 new cars registered (+0.7 pct), followed by Romania (-58.8 pct), the Czech Republic (-10.0 pct) and Hungary (-31.4 pct). The overall decrease in the new EU Member States was -22.9 pct two months into the year.

Fiat Group lost ground across Europe last month, particularly due to a poor month for sales in Italy; however it outperformed the overall market as well as all its major rivals except VW Group and Ford Europe. With 87,635 registrations last month Fiat Group was 16.5 pct down year-on-year (104,891 units in February 2008), but it raised its overall share of the market from 8.9 to 9.1 pct year-on-year. Splitting the brands up, Fiat (including the Fiat Professional and Abarth divisions) saw 71,097 registrations last month, down 18.6 pct; Lancia added 8,720 units, down 20.1 pct; while Alfa Romeo found 7,509 customers in February and was up 23.3 pct. This meant that the Fiat brand's European market share contracted from 7.4 to 7.3 pct year-on-year, Lancia was unchanged on 0.9 pct, and Alfa Romeo climbed from 0.5 to 0.8 pct.

After the first two months of the year Fiat Group has consolidated its position as the fourth best selling car making group in Europe. It has 171,239 registrations for January and February combined, which is 21.2 pct down on the 217,355 units it shifted during the same two months last year. This means however that its has put more ground on the two key rivals it has overtaken this year: GM has 166,722 registrations after the first two months of the year and Renault has 156,425; both of these car makers lost further ground to Fiat during the February sales period. For the year-to-date the Fiat Group's market share has climbed from 8.7 to 8.9 pct year-on-year. The Fiat brand accounts for 138,260 registrations after two months, putting it down 23.2 pct, Lancia has 16,609 registrations, and is down 24.2 pct while Alfa Romeo's 15,507 units puts it up a healthy 9.0 pct year-on-year. This all means that after the first two months of 2009, the Fiat brand's overall European market share is unchanged at 7.2 pct, as is Lancia (0.9 pct), while Alfa Romeo is up from 0.6 to 0.8 pct year-on-year.