The Fiat brand accounted for the bulk of the Fiat Group's registrations in Italy during June, with 55,074 units, as buyers continued to favour the Punto (top), Panda (bottom) and 500 (middle) models in particular.

Fiat posted a highly impressive month's sales in Italy during June as the market finally saw a long-awaited bounce in new car registrations, the domestic carmaker's 71,336 units putting it up 17.02 percent year-on-year and allowing it to significantly outperform the overall market.

The Italian new passenger car market saw a total of 209,315 vehicles registered last month, which put it up 12.38 percent year-on-year, as during the same month last year 186,258 units were shifted. Last month Fiat Group sold over 10,000 vehicles more than it did in June last year and that helped it to comfortably outperform the total market's rise and help it to increase its market share from 32.68 to 34.03 percent year-on-year.

The Fiat brand (including the niche Abarth performance division) accounted for the bulk of the Group's registrations, with 55,074 units, as buyers continued to favour the Punto, Panda and 500 models in particular, although the C-segment Bravo also make an impact again amongst the best-sellers last month. Compared to June 2008 when the Fiat brand saw 46,804 registrations, it was up 17.67 percent year-on-year and this raised its share of the market by more than a percentage point year-on-year: from 25.13 to 26.31 percent. The Lancia brand had another very impressive month, and with 10,432 units finding buyers (more than half of these being for the much-favoured Ypsilon) compared to 8,793 in the same month last year, it was the biggest year-on-year winner amongst the Fiat Group Automobiles (FGA) brands, up 18.64 percent. This allowed Lancia to expand its share of the market from 4.72 to 4.98 percent year-on-year. Alfa Romeo completed the rosy picture, although it struggled to make anything like the headway enjoyed by the Fiat and Lancia brands, it's 5,625 registrations last month compared to 5,152 in June 2008 put it up 8.99 percent year-on-year but it underperformed the overall market and its share shrank from 2.77 to 2.68 percent. Of the Group's niche sports/luxury brands, Ferrari sold 56 cars last month while Maserati came in with 49 units.

After the first six months of this year the Italian market has seen 1,128,361 registrations compared to 1,263,135 during the first half of last year and this leaves the market down 10.67 percent. The Fiat Group has 377,660 sales so far this year and this compares well to its half year total in 2008 of 404,579 units, meaning that it is down 6.65 percent year-on-year although - as it has outperformed the market - its share has climbed from 32.03 to 33.47 percent. The Fiat brand has 293,997 sales so far this year and is down 8.54 percent year-on-year (321,462 during (Jan-Jun 2008) but its market share is up from 25.45 to 26.06 percent. Lancia has sold 54,240 units of its compact three model range - the Ypsilon, Musa and Delta - so far and is up from 4.29 to 4.55 percent year-on-year while Alfa Romeo completes the positive picture for FGA, its 31,451 units so far this year, compared to 27,980 during the first half of 2008, means that it is up 12.41 percent year-on-year and its market share is up from 2.22 to 2.79 percent. For the year-to-date Maserati has sold 466 cars in Italy while Ferrari is on 431.

Fiat's new stateside alliance partner, Chrysler Group, had a mixed fortunes in Italy last month, with 1,030 sales it was down 35.00 percent and saw it market share slide from 0.85 to 0.49 percent year-on-year. While the Chrysler brand's sales fell off the edge of the cliff year-on-year in June, down 79.86 percent to just 118 units, the Dodge division was impressively up 63.61 percent to 535 units, although the third marque in the Chrysler Group portfolio, Jeep, had a pretty dismal time, it was down 44.07 percent year-on-year to 377 units. For the first six months of the year the Chrysler Group has 5,935 sales and is down 43.86 percent on the same period last year. This equates to 877 sales for the Chrysler brand which is down 66.03 percent, 2,571 units for Dodge which is the Group's best performer, down just 14.19 percent, while Jeep is on 2,307 units year-to-date had has lost more than half its market share (-51.78 percent).

The Fiat Punto (including Punto Classic and Grande Punto combined) continued to be Italy's best selling car during June with another 17,455 units finding buyers, while the Panda (17,186) was a close run second as it was just under three hundred units shy of its bigger sister. The 500 (7,467) made it three Fiats in the Italian top-four last month, with the interloper being Ford's Fiesta (9,609). The Lancia Ypsilon (5,687) was a very solid sixth while the Fiat Bravo (4,609) rounded out the top-ten. After the first six months of the year the Punto (91,333) is Italy's best-seller and is almost neck-and neck with the Panda (91,647) while the 500 (47,592) is fourth. The other FGA representatives in the top-ten are the Ypsilon (25,424) in eighth and the Bravo (21,122) in tenth. The Punto was Italy's best selling diesel car last month with 5,087 units being in this specification and for the year so far 26,886 oil burning Puntos have been sold to Italian customers.

In A-segment the Panda and 500 locked out the top-two positions in June. Meanwhile in B-segment the Punto was the clear winner, the Ypsilon was fourth, and the passenger carrying version of the Fiorino (2,900) was ninth, one slot ahead of Lancia's Musa (2,890). In B-segment the Punto is the best seller for the first six months with the Ypsilon fifth and the Alfa MiTo (16,179) eighth. In C-segment the Bravo was second only to the VW Golf (5,578) but is up more than 800 units compared to the same month last year while the Lancia Delta (1,694) was in seventh place. For the year-to-date the Bravo is third and the Delta (12,218) fifth. In D-segment the Alfa 159 (1,445) was third behind BMW's 3-series and Audi's A4, meanwhile the Fiat Croma (1,159) was sixth. After the first six months of the year the Alfa 159 (7,900) is third in the segment while the Croma (6,364) is sixth.

Elsewhere, the Fiat Multipla continues to notch up buyers, 701 units in June placed it sixth in the compact MPV category and for the year-to date it is the fifth best-seller in this category with 5,126 units. The Alfa MiTo was the market's best selling coupé in May, the Italian car's 2,801 units putting it far ahead of its closest rival, Renault's Megane (357), while the still-admired Alfa GT (109) squeezed into the final slot in the top-ten. For the year-to-date the MiTo has found 16,179 buyers with the Alfa GT (512) in tenth. In the "crossover" category the Fiat Sedici (297) was sixth and for the year to date it has 1,461 sales to hold third place. Also of note in this class was the performance of Fiat's new partner brand, Dodge. It's Journey sold 317 units compared to 114 units during the same month a year ago and for the year-to-date it has sold 1,089 examples in Italy. Finally in "Multispace" the Fiorino was the best seller, its 2,900 units placing it well ahead of the Doblò (469). After the first six months of the year the Fiorino (6,757) and the Doblò (2,665) hold the top-two positions.