The Fiat Punto (bottom, the new eco-friendly Natural Power version) was Italy's best selling passenger car last month ahead of the Fiat Panda (top in Cross SUV 4x4 guise) while the Fiat 500 (middle, in the 1.2 POP format) was in fourth place.

Fiat saw its new passenger vehicle registrations in Italy contract by 3.54 percent year-on-year during May however the Italian carmaker comfortably outperformed the overall market to raise its share of all sales from 32.63 to 34.44 pct. Last month saw 188,670 new passenger vehicle registrations in Italy, down from 206,408 units during the same moth a year ago which equates to a fall of 8.59 percent. The data was released last night by Italian automotive trade body UNRAE.

Fiat Group accounted for 64,975 registrations of the 188,760 total and that means it is down 3.54 percent on May 2008 when 67,361 cars were registered by the dominant national carmaker. Splitting the Group's brands up, the Fiat brand (including Abarth) saw 50,263 registrations in May and was down 3.32 percent but still easily outperformed the market average; while Lancia had a very strong last month, driven by continuing customer preference for the Ypsilon and Musa together with steadily growing demand for the Delta, and it saw 8,983 units registered in May which was just 0.18 pct down on May 2008 when 8,999 units were registered. Alfa Romeo, the third member of the Fiat Group Automobiles (FGA) brand portfolio, saw a recent very positive run drifting to an end in May and it accounted for 5,614 sales, down 10.05 pct on the 6,241 it saw registered during the same month last year.

This meant that while the Fiat Group saw its market share climb from 32.63 to 34.44 pct year-on-year last month, the Fiat brand was also up, 25.19 to 26.64 pct year-on-year, as was Lancia which climbed from 4.36 to 4.76 pct year-on-year, although Alfa Romeo's market share slipped very slightly from 3.02 to 2.98 pct. Of the specialist Fiat Group sports/luxury brands, Ferrari with 61 registrations (the F430 was Maranello's best seller with 29 units ahead of the new California convertible which added a further 19 units) in May was down 6.15 pct while Maserati's 54 cars (made up of 39 GranTurismos and 15 Quattroportes) added up to a 21.74 pct fall in sales.

After the first five months of the year the Italian new passenger vehicle market has seen a total of 918,014 sales which is down 14.75 pct year-on-year. Fiat Group has 306,185 vehicle sales so far this year versus 343,712 units during the same period last year and is down 10.92 pct. This though outperforms the overall market and means that Fiat Group has raised its share of the Italian market for the opening first five months of the year from 31.92 to 33.35 pct. Splitting up the FGA brands, the Fiat brand has 238,704 sales so far this year and is down 13.09 pct, Lancia is on 40,932 registrations and has shed 9.94 pct year-on-year, while Alfa Romeo is on 25,828 cars and is up a healthy 13.14 pct. This means that of the FGA portfolio so far this year the Fiat brand has raised its share from 25.51 to 26.00 pct, Lancia is up from 4.22 pct to 4.46 pct while Alfa Romeo makes it three-out-of-three positive rises as it takes its share from 2.12 to 2.81 pct year-on-year.

The evergreen Fiat Punto was the best-selling car in Italy last month, adding another 17,044 units to put it five hundred units clear of the second placed Fiat Panda (16,555). In fourth slot was the 500 ((7,051) while the Fiat Bravo (4,455) turned in a surprise sixth place to make it four Fiat brand cars in the top-6. Making half May's top-10 in Italy representatives of FGA was Lancia's Ypsilon (3,950) in seventh place with another strong performance from the popular B-segment hatchback. After the first five months of the year the Panda (74,378) is Italy's best selling car, a hair's breadth ahead of the Punto (74,337) while the 500 (40,050) is fourth, the Ypsilon (19,733) is eighth. The Bravo (16,496) thanks to its very strong May performance rounds out the top-10.

In A-segment the Panda and 500 dominate at the top of the sales list while in B-segment the Punto is as usual far clear at the top with nearly double the sales of the Ford Fiesta (9,266) and more than treble the third placed Opel Corsa (5,014), while the Ypsilon is a strong fourth and the Alfa MiTo (2,937) is eighth. For the year-to-date the new Alfa Romeo Coupé has amassed 13,375 sales in Italy. A very strong month for the Bravo puts it well clear of the VW Golf (3,833) and Ford Focus (3,076) in B-segment for May while the Lancia Delta (2,507) is in sixth place. After the first five months of the year the Bravo (16,753) is third in Italy to the Golf (23,496) and the Focus (17,994) while the Delta (10,517) is in fifth place. In D-segment the Alfa 159 (1,469) had a more robust month than has been the recent case on its way to third place and this meant it kept the BMW 3-series (1,852) and the Audi A4 (1,609) clearly in sight. For the year-to-date the Alfa 159 (6,453) is in third place behind the Audi A4 (9,842) and BMW 3-series (9,289). Elsewhere the MiTo was Italy's best selling coupé last month, well clear of the Audi A5, with 9,937 units for the new Alfa Romeo versus 363 for the German model. In 'Multispace' the passenger-lugging versions of the Fiorino (964) and Doblò (294) held the top-two spots last month and they cemented their leadership of the category for the year-to-date with 3,848 and 2,166 units respectively.