According to automotive trade body UNRAE a total of 130,319 new cars were sold in Italy last month which, when compared to 166,461 units during the final month of 2009, adds up to a 21.71 percent year-on-year fall. The Fiat Group saw its sales slump by fourteen thousand units year-on-year from 52,608 in December 2009 to 38,712 last month, a fall of 26.41 percent which reduced its share of all Italian new car sales from 31.60 to 29.71 percent year-on-year, although last month represented a very mild improvement on November.

The Fiat Automobiles brand led the decline once again: 29,223 units registered during the final month of last year versus 41,489 in December 2009 saw its sales dropping by 29.56 percent year-on-year. It's share of all sales fell from 24.92 to 22.42 percent year-on-year for the final month of the year. The Fiat brand's problems come in part from the ending of government "eco" incentives, which finally faded out in the spring, as well as a lack of preparedness for the arrival of Euro V legislation which has severely reduced consumer choice across the model ranges. A weak facelift for the Grande Punto in the autumn of 2009 has seen sales of its most important model sliding (an even more acute problem outside of Italy) and Fiat is now considering rushing out a revised Punto model this summer to try to stem the decline.

Lancia ended the year with very little good news either: 5,628 sales in December compared to 7,834 during the same month the previous year left it down 28.16 percent year-on-year and its market share down from 4.71 to 4.32 percent year-on-year. Alfa Romeo however provided some more robust news for Fiat Group Automobiles (FGA) thanks to demand for the Giulietta which more than counterbalanced a drop in interest in the MiTo and 3,817 units last month versus 3,239 during December 2009 added up to a 17.85 percent year-on-year increase and a jump in its market share from 1.95 to 2.93 percent. The Fiat Group's niche luxury/performance brands had a mixed month, Ferrari went north as it added 23 cars last month, up 43.75 percent year-on-year, while Maserati went south, its 21 cars left it down 30 percent year-on-year.

The Italian new car market ends 2010 with 1,960,282 cars registered, almost exactly 200,000 units down on the incentive-fuelled year before, a decline of 9.22 percent. The Fiat Group ends the year with 590,376 cars sold, nearly one hundred and twenty thousand cars less than the preceding year (708,799 units for the full year of 2009). The Fiat brand suffers the most again, it shed 100,000 units from 2009 to 2010 (2009: 549,760 units/2010: 450,384 units) an 18.08 percent year-on-year fall and its market share declined from 22.98 percent (2009) to 18.08 percent (2010). Lancia sold a total of 86,929 cars in Italy last year, well down from 2009 when it broke through the six-figure barrier at home (102,574 units) and it was therefore down 15.25 percent. Its market share correspondingly slid from 4.75 percent (2009) to 4.43 percent (2010).

Alfa Romeo was helpfully boosted by the mid-year arrival in the showrooms of the new Giulietta hatchback to fill in the key C-segment but its sales collapse in the Sergio Marchionne era is nothing short of shocking: once a key player in Italy its sales for the full-year of 2010 only just breached the fifty thousand units mark, far away from the continual stream of wild sales estimates set by its senior management, and almost one-sixth of the infamous Marchionne-touted target of "300,000 units by 2010". Alfa Romeo's total sales last year of 51,882 units however was less that five thousand units shy of the previous year's tally (55,260 units in 2009), a year-on-year fall of 6.11 percent. As it outperformed the benchmark overall market, its share climbed from 2.56 percent (2009) to 2.65 percent (2010). Ferrari meanwhile sold 682 of its sports cars during 2010, up 10.71 percent year-on-year, while Maserati's 499 units was down 15.71 percent.