Lancia, buoyed by growing demand for the Delta (bottom, the new 200 bhp 1.8Di TurboJet version), as well as the resilience of the Ypsilon and Musa (top, seen together on the recent EcoChic tour), sold 10,815 cars last month, which equated to 145 units more units than it managed in the May of last year, and this pleasingly up it up 1.4 percent year-on-year. Lancia was thus able to raise its overall European market share in May from 0.8 to 0.9 percent year-on-year.

Fiat Group had another very resilient month for new car sales across Europe in May, one of just two of the big carmaking groups on the market that ended the month in positive territory, and with the Fiat and Lancia brands both pleasingly up year-on-year. The Fiat Group saw 116,243 new cars registered across Europe last month, up 2.0 percent year-on-year to raise its market share from 8.5 to 9.2 percent.

Fiat's performance in May contrasted well to the total number of new passenger car registrations in Europe (EU27 + EFTA) which was negative for the thirteenth consecutive month, with 4.9 percent fewer new units recorded than in May 2008. In total, 1,270,195 new cars were registered onto the market. Five months into the year, the European market contracted by 13.9 percent. May counted on average one working day less across the region.

In Western Europe, new registrations totalled 1,197,292 units in May. Austria (+4.8 percent), Greece (+5.1 percent), France (+11.8 percent) and Germany (+39.7 percent) contributed to mitigating the drop to -3.2 percent, reflecting market support in the form of fleet renewal schemes. Similarly, Italy limited its downturn to a single digit decrease (-8.6 percent). In the UK (-24.8 percent) and Spain (-38.7 percent), the announcement of incentive schemes could not translate into the registration figures yet. Five months into the year, new car registrations declined by 12.8 percent. Germany (+22.8 percent) was the only market to expand over that period. France (-1.4 percent) performed second best, followed by Austria (-3.0 percent). Among the major markets, the Italian contracted by 14.7 percent, the British by 27.9 percent and the Spanish by 42.7 percent.

Results in the new EU Member States were down 26.0 percent in May, with only the Czech Republic (+20.5 percent) and Slovakia (+46.4 percent) posting growth. The downturn ranged from -3.1 percent in Poland to -80.4 percent in Latvia. From January to May, Poland (+0.7 percent), Slovakia (+1.3 percent) and the Czech Republic (+5.5 percent) performed better than over the same period a year ago, resulting in a 27.9 percent overall downturn for the region.

With 116,243 new cars registered across Europe last month compared to 113,992 in May 2008, Fiat Group was up 2.0 percent year-on-year which raised its overall market share from 8.5 percent last May to an impressive 9.2 percent last month. Fiat, the fifth biggest seller across Europe last month, was just one of two of the big-nine groups on the continent to see its sales rise year-on-year, the other being the market dominating VW Group, which was up 3.1 percent after selling 278,933 cars. In between VW and Fiat, PSA Peugeot-Citroën (165,167 units; -5.9 percent), Ford (125,395; -5.0 percent) and GM (118,602; -10.8 percent) all lost ground. Below Fiat, Renault (112,064; -4.4 percent) and Toyota (59,266; -8.9 percent) were both firmly in negative territory, as were the two German prestige brands BMW (65,490; -14.1 percent) and Daimler (61,714; -8.9 percent) which saw European buyers continuing to shun their products.

Of the Fiat Group's 116,243 sales across Europe last month, 93,955 came from the Fiat brand (including Abarth). Compared to 91,437 units in the same month last year Fiat was up 2.8 percent year-on-year to take its market share from 6.8 to 7.4 percent. Despite growing demand for the new B-segment MiTo, Alfa Romeo amassed 10,866 registrations in May compared to 11,237 units sold during the same month a year ago which meant it was the only one of the Fiat Group Automobiles' brands to end the month in negative territory, down 3.3 percent; however this still outperformed the overall market's 4.1 percent fall and meant its market share rose from 0.8 to 0.9 percent year-on-year. Lancia, buoyed by demand for the new Delta as well as the resilience of the Ypsilon and Musa, sold 10,815 cars last month, which equated to 145 units more than it managed in the May of last year and this pleasingly up it up 1.4 percent year-on-year. Lancia was thus able to raise its European market share in May from 0.8 to 0.9 percent year-on-year. The Group's specialist sports/luxury brands Ferrari and Maserati saw 607 units sold last month, down 6.3 percent year-on-year.

After the first five months of the year the Fiat Group is on 546,570 registrations (versus 567,633 for January-May 2008), which puts it down 3.7 percent year-on-year. However it is the best performer amongst the big nine groups (and only niche player Hyundai is ahead of it in year-on-year performance of the whole market) and Fiat has significantly outperformed the overall market which is down 13.9 percent for the year-to-date. This has all helped to see its market share jump from 8.2 to 9.2 percent year-on-year. It means that for the year-to-date Fiat continues to be the fourth biggest selling group in Europe, behind VW Group (1,279,926), PSA Peugeot-Citroën (755,868) and Ford (617,550) but with a significantly better year-on-year performance as these three groups have lost 5.6, 15.6 and 10.7 percent respectively year-on-year. Fiat continues to maintain a three thousand unit advantage over GM Europe (543,602) after the first five months of the year, GM (which comprises of the Opel, Vauxhall, Saab and Chevrolet brands) has seen a massive 20.1 percent fall off in its sales this year. Then comes another group that has seen its former position above Fiat tumble away over the last year, Renault, which with 502,103 sales so far this year is down a hefty 16.7 percent year-on-year. Toyota (306,888) has also suffered badly, down 17.5 percent year-on-year, while the German luxury brands Daimler (284,309) and BMW (280,466) are performing badly too, falling 21.8 and 24.9 percent year-on-year respectively.

The Fiat brand has seen 446,356 registrations so far this year, down 4.4 percent year-on-year but this means that due to the overall market's woeful performance so far this year its market share climbs from 6.8 to 7.5 percent year-on-year. Lancia has 49,466 sales so far this year and is down 8.7 percent year-on-year. Its market share remains unchanged on 0.8 percent. Alfa Romeo meanwhile has seen 47,687 sales for the year-to-date and is up 10.8 percent year-on-year. It expects to sell 125,000 cars this year according to CEO Sergio Cravero in an interview with Il Giornale newspaper today, which would be up around 15,000 units on last year. Cravero said his target was to get to the 200,000 units a year sales mark. The Fiat Group's sports/luxury brands Ferrari and Maserati have sold 3,061 cars across Europe so far this year which is down 8.8 percent year-on-year.