A
dismal 2011 in Europe for the Fiat Group finished on a
low note as its December sales plunged 15.3 percent
year-on-year and dropped it below BMW Group to leave it as
only the seventh best selling carmaking group for the
month. In total 995,404 new cars were sold in Europe
(EU27+EFTA) during December, according to manufacturer
body ACEA, down 5.8 percent on the same month of
the previous year.
The Fiat Group's poor December showing across Europe was three times
worse than the overall market's fall, and the Italian
carmaker shed more than ten thousand registrations to
end the final month of 2011 on 61,399 units (72,710 in December 2010).
That reduced the Fiat Group's market share for the final
month of the year from 6.9 percent (2010) to 6.2 percent
(2011).
More worryingly the Fiat Group was actually outsold by
Germany's BMW Group, which
added an extra 3,754 units over Fiat, to take a 6.6 percent share
of the market and push the Fiat Group down to seventh place
(with 6.2 percent) and leave it as the worst of the mass brands
amongst the top nine big carmaking groups. The Fiat
Group also sold only one-quarter of that managed by
Europe's biggest player, VW Group. In year-on-year terms
the Fiat Group was the second-worst performer for December, PSA Peugeot-Citroën dropped 18.5 percent, while GM
(-15.0 percent) and Renault (-14.3 percent) were the
only other double-digit losers. At the other end of the scale
Toyota (+14.9 percent), VW Group (+9.0 percent), Daimler
(+8.3 percent) and Ford (+3.4 percent) were all
positive.
All the Italian-based Fiat Group Automobiles (FGA) brands were
in the red ink last month and the Fiat brand was, as ever,
the biggest rotten apple in the barrel, its 43,396 units
last month was ten thousand units down on December 2010
when it shifted 53,750 units and its market share for
the final month of the year thus shrank from 5.1 percent
(2010) to just 4.4 percent (2011).
In a sign of just how bad
things have got, the mass-selling Fiat brand actually
finished with lower volumes for December than any of the
three German prestige brands, Audi (48,093), Mercedes
(47,433) and BMW (51,241), while Toyota (48,402) also
comfortably overtook the Fiat brand.
The picture was also negative at Alfa Romeo
which was down one thousand cars and 12.6 percent last
month after shifting 8,113 cars, as opposed to 9,280 in
December 2010. That dropped Alfa Romeo's European market
share down a notch from 0.9 percent in 2010 to 0.8
percent in 2011.
Thanks to the arrival of the new Ypsilon last year, Lancia was
able to remain flat in December (-0.4 percent), its
7,348 units last month was down 26 units on December
2010 and also outperformed the overall market. Lancia
also counts a handful of sales of its models rebadged as
Chryslers in the UK, but in real terms these make no
difference to the data, and the brand remains
effectively reliant on its domestic market for its
European volumes.
Lancia's European market share for December remained
flat at 0.7 percent.
Jeep provided the only bright spot
of black ink for FGA last month, its sales climbed 47.9 percent,
albeit to just 2,113 units. Ferrari and Maserati
meanwhile continued their year-long decline in Europe,
their combined sales halved (-51.1 percent) to 429 units
for December.
The
Fiat Group ends a very difficult year of slumping sales
by undershooting the seven figure mark with a total of
947,786 cars sold, a massive one hundred and thirty
thousand units and 12 percent down on 2010's total of
1,077,228 units (of 2011's total 515,621 sales came from
Italy). The overall market meanwhile ended 2011 almost
flat (-1.4 percent). That mean the Fiat Group's European
market share dropped from 7.8 percent in 2010 to 7.0
percent in 2011. It also meant that in year-on-year
terms it was comfortably the worse performer in Europe
last year amongst its eight key peers and the only one
to suffer a double-digit fall. In fact, of every
carmaker exposed in Europe, only Honda (-20.1 percent)
and Mazda (-24.8 percent) fared worse, and both had the
partial excuse of March's Japanese Tsunami.
The
Fiat brand struggled throughout 2011 as customers
shunned an ageing product line-up and in particular a weak facelift
for its key Punto model, all of which in particular
didn't help its fight for buyers during a difficult year
on its domestic market. In total Fiat sold 682,140 cars
in Europe last year (with 363,017 coming in Italy), down
17.2 percent from 2010 when it sold 824,237 cars across
the continent. As a result the Fiat brand's market share
dropped from 6.0 percent in 2010 to 5.0 percent in 2011.
FGA's
niche brands had a mixed year, Alfa Romeo sold 130,535
cars last year, well down from its managements' targets, but that was
still up twenty thousand units and 18.7 percent on 2010.
It also outperformed the overall European market and
that meant that Alfa Romeo's total share rose from 0.8
percent in 2010 to 1.0 percent in 2011.
However towards
the end of the year Alfa Romeo's sales started to fall
off as the 'newness' effect of the Giulietta began to wear
away, while the smaller MiTo also slid, despite a
broadening of the B-segment hatchback's range. Worryingly for Alfa Romeo, as it faces a quite
uncertain 2012, the new Giulietta hasn't got anywhere
close to replicating the volumes of the car it replaced,
the Alfa 147, while demand started falling after almost
exactly a
year on sale.
Lancia
had a solid 2011, its sales fell six and a half thousand
units and 6.1 percent in 2011 to 103,151 units (a
nominal number of Chrysler badged versions are also
counted in that total). Lancia also received a mid-year
fillip on its domestic market from the arrival of the
new-generation Ypsilon. Jeep had a good 2011 in Europe
and jumped 61.8 percent to 23,745 units, while Ferrari
and Maserati both gave up massive ground in Europe last
year, their combined 8,215 sales during 2011 was in fact
down 55.5 percent on 2010.
