With 60,473 vehicles sold, Fiat Automóveis led the
Brazilian market for cars and light commercial vehicles
combined during September to continue its leadership for
the year-to-date, although its main rival VW was just
one thousand units adrift for the month.
According to sales data
released by the Associação Nacional dos Fabricantes
de Veículos Automotores (Anfavea), split between
passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, Fiat saw
47,425 cars and 13,048 LCVs registered last month while
VW weighed in with 50,222 cars and 9,260 LCVs.
Fiat, the long time
leader of the Brazilian market where the majority of its
global profits are obtained from, is this year coming
under increasing pressure, particularly from the
country's traditional number two, Volkswagen (which also
sells the upscale Audi brand in this country), but also
from smaller players including Hyundai, Nissan and the
three French brands (Peugeot, Citroën and Renault) as
all press to gain ground.
A total of 226,158 new
passenger cars were sold in Brazil last month, that
figure was down 3.2 percent year-on-year and also down
4.3 percent month-on-month. Fiat Automóveis, however,
underperformed the market in September as with 47,425
cars sold compared to 53,275 during the same month a
year ago it was down 11 percent year-on-year. With
24,917 examples sold, the Uno was Fiat's best selling
model in Brazil during September, in fact accounting for
more than half of all its passenger car registrations.
Month-on-month Fiat
also underperformed the Brazilian market as the 52,690
cars it in August was up 10 percent on September. By
contrast 50,222 registrations for rival VW last month
put the German carmaker down 3.9 percent year-on-year
and 8.8 percent month-on-month. Third placed GM was on
45,187 units for the month of September, up 16.6 percent
year-on-year but down 1.3 percent on August.
In the segment reserved for
LCVs a total of 67,402 examples were sold last month in
Brazil, up a strong 16.6 percent year-on-year but down
5.9 percent month-on-month. Fiat Automóveis was the
clear leader here, as usual, with 13,048 units
registered, although it lost significant ground to the
market as it was down 3.6 percent year-on-year (13,534
units in September 2010) and down 11.1 percent
month-on-month (14,679 units in August 2011). Fiat's
closest LCV rivals were someway adrift as usual, VW was
on 9,260 units last month but up by 18.7 percent
year-on-year, while GM's 8,490 units was up 9.6 percent
year-on-year. Fiat's best selling LCV last month, as
ever, was the Strada pick-up and with 11,245 units sold
it was by far the market's most popular LCV.
After the first three quarters
of the year a total of 1,958,736 new passenger cars have
been sold in Brazil, up 4.2 percent year-on-year. Fiat
has 442,424 sales for the year-to-date, almost flat
(+0.3 percent) on the same period last year when it
shifted 441,401 cars. Despite making some recent
inroads, VW is still behind for the year-to-date
(440,031 units, +2.6 percent) while third placed GM
(389,161 units) is down 2.7 percent for the nine month
period. Amongst LCVs Fiat is on 119,278 registrations
for the year-to-date, up 11.5 percent year-on-year,
while VW is next up on 84,161 units but up 22.4 percent
on the same nine month period last year.
