Fiat comfortably retained
the wooden spoon as the worst performing carmaking group
in Europe for yet another consecutive month after it
sold 76,808 cars during February, a year-on-year fall of
16.7 percent. Aside from the Fiat Group, only Ford, now
shorn of its niche brands, managed to post a double
digit year-on-year fall in sales last month; the U.S.
firm was down 12.1 percent.
The data comes from
European automobile manufacturer body ACEA which
announced that the overall market (counting the 27
members of the European Union plus the EFTA signatories)
went positive last month, up 1.4 percent on the same
period last year. While most EU member countries have posted growth, ranging from
+1.2 percent in Poland to +112.6 percent in
Lithuania, five have recorded a downturn, including major markets such as the UK
(-7.7 percent), Italy (-20.5 percent) and Spain (-27.6 percent). The two remaining major markets
have
posted growth, with registrations up 13.2 percent in France and 15.2 percent in Germany.
Portugal and Greece have seen their markets contract by 12.7 percent and 49.1
percent respectively.
With 76,808
registrations the Fiat Group was fifteen thousand units
shy of last January's total sales of 92,212 units, a
year-on-year decline of 16.7 percent. That meant its
overall European market share for the month slumped from
9.2 to 7.6 percent year-on-year. Fiat was however the
fifth best placed carmaker for the month having
overhauled Ford (73,133 units; -12.1 percent) by three
and a half thousand units while it was just one thousand
units shy of GM (78,836 units; +8.3 percent). The top
three best selling groups on the European market during
February were VW (+9.1 percent), PSA Peugeot-Citroën
(-5.0 percent) and Renault (+3.1 percent) while someway
below the tight bunching of GM, Fiat and Ford, came
another other level-pegging trio: BMW (46,683 units;
+13.4 percent), Toyota (43,018 units; -3.1 percent) and
Daimler (42,724 units; +3.2 percent).
The Fiat brand was the
driver in the Italian carmaker's European sales decline
once again during February, and with the Fiat Group
Automobiles' (FGA) niche brands, Lancia and Alfa Romeo,
cancelling themselves out, Fiat Automobiles sixteen and
a half thousand unit slump for the month in year-on-year
terms fully accounted for the group's ailing fortunes.
The Fiat brand notched up 56,960 units registered last
month compared to 73,465 units in February 2010, and
that saw its market share slide from 7.3 to 5.6 percent
year-on-year. Last year at this point Fiat was able to
cash in on the European government backed "scrappage"
schemes, but without any new models to tempt customers,
plus having to live with a weak facelift for its biggest
seller, the Punto, as well a lack of preparation for the
onset of mandatory Euro 5 legislation which has
cannibalised its ranges, Fiat hasn't been able to see
any of the mild recovery that many of its rivals have
enjoyed. With only a rebadged Dodge Journey (called the
Freemont) due to join the product line up in the near
future, Fiat Automobiles is set to have a difficult
year.
Lancia also had a
difficult February and with 8,062 units registered
compared to 10,345 units during the same period a year
ago that added up to a 22.1 percent fall and
consequently its European market share slipped from 1.0
to 0.8 percent for the month year-on-year. Lancia has
been boosted by the continued resilience of the ageing
Ypsilon in Italy, which continues to find favour with
buyers and it will be looking for the next-generation
version of this supermini to pick up the baton when it
arrives in the showrooms very shortly. FGA's "luxury"
brand continues to be hampered by an overreliance on its
domestic market for sales and is thus tightly bound to
its trends. Last month Lancia sold only 776 cars outside
of Italy.
However, Alfa Romeo
once again provided a much needed bright spot for FGA
thanks to continuing demand for the award-winning
Giulietta hatchback which has driven a sales recovery
for the brand in the vital C-segment ever since it was
launched last summer. Meanwhile the brand's other key
model, the B-segment MiTo, after slipping following the
ending of Europe-wide "scrappage" schemes has now found
a reasonably steady sales level. Alfa Romeo posted
healthy sales of 11,461 units across Europe during
February compared to 8,088 units during the same month a
year ago which was an impressive jump of 47.1 percent.
With 6,262 registrations in its domestic market during
February that meant nearly half the "sports" brand's
sales came from outside of Italy. Consequently Alfa
Romeo's European market share rose from 0.8 to 1.1
percent year-on-year for the second month of 2011.
Meanwhile, the Fiat Group's niche luxury/performance
brands, Ferrari and Maserati, posted a combined sales
total of 325 units in Europe last month, up 12 units and
3.8 percent year-on-year.
For the year-to-date
the Fiat Group has totted up 156,937 registrations in
Europe, down thirty five thousand units on the opening
two months of 2010 when it amassed 192,380
registrations, a year-on-year fall of 18.4 percent
against a flat market (+0.1 percent).
The Fiat Group hasn't
been helped so far this year by many of its key European
markets which have suffered declines. For the
year-to-date the majority of markets have performed better that
during the same period a year ago though
three of the five largest have faced a double-digit downturn. The UK shrank by 10.2
percent over the first two months of 2011 while Fiat's
domestic market,
Italy, is down by a fifth (-20.5 percent) and Spain by a quarter (-25.8
percent). Poland (-4.2 percent), Portugal (-11.0
percent) and Greece
(-58.5 percent) have also seen their markets contract. Elsewhere, growth has ranged from 1.9
percent in
Luxembourg to 114.5 percent in Estonia.
The Fiat Group is
comfortably the worst performer in Europe for the year
so far, Ford is the next biggest loser, down -10.7
percent and without its niche brands it is less than one
and a half thousand units ahead of Fiat (Ford YTD
158,369 units). VW Group is the market leader as ever,
up 7.5 percent year-on-year, followed by PSA
Peugeot-Citroën (-4.3 percent), Renault (-1.2 percent)
and GM (+6.2 percent). Then comes Ford closely tailed by
Fiat with BMW (+16.6 percent) still fifty thousand units
behind Fiat. Toyota (-7.7 percent) and Daimler (+8.4
percent) make up the rest of the big players.
The Fiat brand is down
nearly forty thousand units and almost a quarter (-24.4
percent) for the year-to-date, with 116,554
registrations last month versus 154,230 for the same
period of 2010 meaning that its European market share
for the period slides from 7.4 to 5.6 percent. Lancia is
also down more than a fifth for the year-to-date (- 22.7
percent) with 15,829 registrations compared to 20,485
for the opening two months of last year and thus its
European market share for the first two months of the
year drops from 1.0 to 0.8 percent year-on-year. Alfa
Romeo once again bucks the FGA downwards trend, 23,692
units for the year-to-date compared to 16,901 during the
same period last year is up 40.2 percent and its slice
of all European sales for the period climbs from 0.8 to
1.0 percent year-on-year. The Fiat Group's niche brands,
Ferrari and Maserati, have 862 sales for the
year-to-date combined which is up 12.8 percent on the
opening two months of 2010.
The Chrysler Group,
now 25 percent owned by the Fiat Group, continues to
slide, although its data is distorted by the recent
removal of the Dodge brand from all European markets and
the Chrysler brand's exit from all markets except the UK
and Ireland, both markets where it is almost extinct
now. That leaves Jeep, which now comes under the FGA
umbrella in Europe, to uphold the group's sales on the
continent, however the off road brand is waiting for
several facelifted models to arrive in the showrooms as
well as a possible impact to be made by the new Jeep
Grand Cherokee. During February the Chrysler Group had
combined sales across its three brands in Europe of
2,209 units and when compared to 2,932 units during the
same month last year this adds up to a fall of just
under a quarter (24.7 percent) and a year-on-year
contraction in its market share from 0.3 to 0.2 percent.
For the year-to-date the Chrysler Group has 4,564
registrations, and when compared to 6,039 units during
the opening two months of 2010, that is an identical
fall to that posted last month, -24.7 percent, and a
similar drop in market share from 0.3 to 0.2 percent.
