Fiat has
seen a drop in March sales in Europe for its key key
models, the Punto and Panda, largely due to
significantly reduced sales in Germany where the market
has tumbled; however the two cars remained amongst the
top-ten best-sellers in Europe for the month in ninth
and tenth slot, with 31,636 and 30,483 sales
respectively. They are also both up for sales for the
year-to-date, according to leading provider of
automotive data and intelligence, JATO Dynamics.
After a very strong March
2009 in Germany Fiat's sales on this important volume
market came back down to earth last month as sales
shrank, the Punto seeing sales tumble 88 percent and the
Panda losing 80 percent. This contributed to a more
difficult month for the two Fiat Automobiles' models,
their overall European sales both down for March, the
Punto (including Punto Classic, Grande Punto and Punto
Evo) was down 15.5 percent year-on-year while the Panda
shed 9.5 percent. The only other car amongst the
European top-ten to lose ground year-on-year during
March was the seventh-placed VW Polo which dropped 3.9
percent.
For the year-to-date
the Punto has notched up 86,019 sales across Europe, up
thirteen thousand units on the same period last year
(73,165) and that adds up to a 17.6 percent rise in
sales to make it the fifth best year-on-year model
performer in the European top-ten for the opening three
months of the year. The Panda has 74,730 sales for the
first quarter, up slight on the 72,250 units it sold
during the same three months last year, a year-on-year
rise of 3.4 percent.
Meanwhile the Ford
Fiesta has become Europe’s best-selling car, beating the
Volkswagen Golf into second place in both March and
year-to-date sales, In total, 68,630 Fiestas were sold
in March 2010, a 25.8 percent rise in sales compared to
March 2009 and 11,785 more than Volkswagen’s
second-placed Golf. Year-to-date, Fiesta is also ahead,
selling 140,496 to Golf’s 135,048, reversing the picture
from Q1 2009, but continuing a pattern where Fiesta has
closed the sales gap to Golf through 2010.
Fiesta’s achievement
is more impressive considering Golf sales also increased
during last month and the year’s first quarter. Fiesta
sales simply outpaced Golf, with its move to pole
position particularly due to its strong March sales in
the UK (+14.7 percent) and Italy (+87 percent), where 57
percent of all Fiestas sold (11,251) were LPG-powered.
By contrast, Golf’s traditionally strong home market,
Germany, continued to struggle, losing 106,590 sales
overall compared to March 2009 (- 26.6 percent).
“What may appear to be
a sudden change in fortunes is actually a continuing
trend,” explained David Di Girolamo, Head of JATO
Consult. “Fiesta has been closing the gap to Golf
through 2010 and there are a number of factors behind
this. The buoyant sales markets so far this year are
those where Fiesta is popular and are also scrappage-influenced
markets, driving purchase of small cars. In the UK,
March marked a registration change and the final month
of Britain’s scrappage scheme, while in Italy, March was
the last month of 2010 in which scrappage sales could be
registered. The last time Fiesta was ahead of Golf in
European sales was March 2009, so it remains to be seen
whether it can hold top position this time round.”
