There is still no sign of
any respite for Fiat Automobiles tumbling sales across
Europe as on the German market October marked the sixth
consecutive month that the Italian carmaker has seen its
sales plunge by a half. Fiat Automobiles, once again,
had the dubious distinction of being the worst
year-on-year performer of any brand name on the German
new car market last month.
There were simply no
positive signs at for Fiat as the overall market in fact
eased its losses slightly during October: 256,775 cars
registered adding up to a year-on-year fall of 20
percent, meaning that the Fiat brand's stumble was
almost two-and-a-half times the overall market's retreat
and it all comes right on the back of a 40 percent
year-on-year decline in Italy for the same month. There
was some better news at sister Fiat Group Automobiles
(FGA) brand Alfa Romeo which, thanks to robust demand
for the new Giulietta, only lost a small amount of
ground year-on-year and comfortably outperformed the
overall market, albeit on total sales of less than a
thousand units.
With 5,892 cars sold
last month in Germany the Fiat brand saw its sales
declining 47.8 percent year-on-year and its share of the
overall market for October thus shrank to just 2.3
percent. The next biggest loser last month was the VW
Group's Skoda unit (-44.8 percent) which was followed by
GM's Opel (-37.8 percent) and French carmaker Renault
(-36.1 percent).
The next sharpest
fallers were the three big Japanese carmaking groups led
out by Honda (-35.2 percent) and closely followed by
Toyota/Lexus (-31.4 percent) and Nissan/Infiniti (-31.1
percent). Behind them came a second VW Group division,
this time Spain's SEAT (-29.5 percent) and then U.S.
giant Ford (-27.8 percent) was yet another big player to
lose more than a quarter of its German sales during
October and under perform the overall market. Amongst
the winners were the three prestige domestic brands -
Porsche, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi - while big niche
gainers included Jaguar and Land Rover.
Alfa Romeo however was
the bright spot for FGA in October, its 963 units was
down only very slightly year-on-year (-5.4 percent)
although it has a lot of work to do as that gave the
'sports' division a share of the month's sales that came
in at 0.4 percent. Lancia unfortunately went the
opposite way once more and the Turinese brand has all
but vanished from the German market this year: it
shifted just 94 more units during October.
For the year-to-date
the picture is just as bleak for Fiat Automobiles: a
total of 68,278 units registered after ten months adds
up to a 54.4 percent fall compared to the same period
last year and leaves it as the worst performing volume
brand on the market. Only three very niche brands - Lada,
Daihatsu and FGA's Lancia - have suffered more
year-on-year for the year-to-date. Fiat's slice of all
sales for the year-to-date in Germany now stands at 2.8
percent.
Alfa Romeo has sold
6,958 cars so far this year on this market and that
means it is down by more than a third year-on-year
(-36.3 percent) and it has a 0.3 percent share of all
sales for the ten month period. Lancia has sold just
1,220 cars in Germany for the year-to-date and its fall
of 61.6 percent year-on-year for the period makes it the
worst performing brand name in Germany so far this year.
The Chrysler Group, 20
percent owned by Fiat Group, notched up 422 sales in
October combined across its three brand names: Chrysler,
Dodge and Jeep, adding up to a year-on-year fall of 19.6
percent which mirrored the overall market's performance
and gave it a 0.2 percent share of all sales for the
month. For the year-to-date the Chrysler Group has a
combined sales total of 5,184 vehicles which is down
29.3 percent year-on-year for the ten month period. Its
market share for the year-to-date now stands at 0.2
percent.
