Driven by sales of the new Uno, Fiat
Automóveis retained its leadership of the sector for new cars and light
commercial vehicles in Brazil during June, with a total of 60,164 registrations.
The Brazilian market saw
a total of 250,984 vehicles registered during June, up
4.65 percent month-on-month but 12.4 percent lower on
the same month last year. Fiat Automóveis was up more
than 5,000 units month-on-month while its nearest rival
VW slid over the corresponding period allowing the
Italian brand to gain ground. The data was released yesterday by the
Associação Nacional dos Fabricantes de Veículos (Anfavea) using data from
the Registro Nacional de Veículos Automotores (Renavam).
With the new Uno
racking up strong demand in the Fiat dealerships across
Brazil along with the long-running "Project World Car"
family member Siena and Strada coming out on top in the
segments for compact sedans and LCVs respectively, as
well as its rivals failing to make the same ground, it
was a very positive month for Fiat Automóveis.
June's sales result extends
Fiat's sales
lead in Brazil which has accumulated over the first half of the year a total of 341,459 units.
That corresponds to a 22.8 percent market share,
although this is a significant slip from its customary
dominant position of accounting for a quarter of all the
country's sales. Fiat sold 60,164 units in Brazil in
June, Volkswagen was second with 51,965 units for the
month, GM in third sold 49,049 vehicles while Ford
accounted for 24,441 units during the same monthly
period. If LCV sales are stripped out the Italian
carmaker still had a two-and-a-half thousand unit
advantage over its German rival. It all means that Fiat
Automóveis' advantage over the second placed carmaker in
the ranking of sales, VW, when car light commercial vehicles sales are combined
stands at
more than 28,000 units after the first half of the year.
In its first full month on sale the new Uno helped dramatically increased sales of the model
(the data includes the new and old versions of the Uno
combined) to
19,033 units in the month, putting it into second place and bringing its
year-to-date total to 82,623 units. The arrival of the
new Uno is also putting significant pressure on the
traditional Brazilian market leading model, VW's Gol,
with the Uno just 3,000 units shy of the German brand's
model last month. However the arrival of the new Uno has
hit sales of the ageing Palio hard, it is a customary
Brazilian top-three performer but dropped to sixth place
with 10,061 sales last month. However for the
year-to-date the Palio has 73,522 registrations and
shows signs of stabilising in this position as it had
notched up 10,448 sales the previous month.
One place behind the
Palio last month, in seventh slot, was the Siena with
9,491 sales which made it the top seller amongst the
market's compact sedans and it has 59,778 sales for the
year-to-date. The eighth best-seller in Brazil, and Fiat
Automóveis' final representative in the top-ten
during June, was the Strada (9,320 units) meaning it
retains its position as the best selling LCV on the
market with 51,707 units for the year-to-date and was
the only one to breach the top-ten in June. The Palio,
Siena and Strada are all members of the "Project 178"
family which was first launched in 1996 in Brazil and in
recent months all three key models have been given
"Model Year" updates to keep them competitive, mostly
with greater standard equipment at no or a small
premium.
