Just as
Fiat Automóveis celebrates a decade as Brazil's best
selling automaker the cracks have started to appear and
last month it lost its top spot, surprisingly not to
ever close rival VW, but to GM which made the most of a
rising market to end the month almost a thousand units
clear of Fiat. The January 2012 sales data comes from
the body the Associação Nacional
dos Fabricantes de Veículos Automotores (Anfavea).
Fiat sold 51,901 passenger cars and light commercial
vehicles combined in Brazil during January and while its
eternal rival VW closed up to within just a whisker with
51,416 sales, it was GM which stole the show with 52,850
units sold. Ford held onto it's customary fourth place,
but its sales were less than half of the top three.
In the passenger car segment the market climbed by 8.9
percent during January and Fiat comfortably outperformed
the market its 42,366 sales represented a jump of 14.9
percent when compared to 36,878 during the same month a
year ago. VW however significantly underperformed the
overall market, down 10.1 percent year-on-year, although
with 42,466 sales it still narrowly beat Fiat. However
GM put on a spurt of 34 percent to 46,337 vehicles. That
outsold Fiat by a margin of four thousand cars and
pushed the Italian carmaker down to the unheard of
position of the third best seller in the passenger car
segment.
It was in fact a difficult January for the Brazilian
market in month-on-month terms as it dropped 21.8
percent from December 2011. Fiat mildly underperformed
the overall market's sharp fall in month-on-month terms,
down 24.6 percent (56,164 units in December 2011), while
VW fared little better, down 22.9 percent (55,093 units
in December 2011). GM meanwhile had the softest fall and
outperformed the overall market with a 9.5 percent slide
(51,173 units in December 2011).
In the segment for LCVs sold in Brazil Fiat Automóveis
struggled during January, the market jumped 13.1
year-on-year while the Italian carmaker lost 3.2 percent
after selling 9,535 vehicles. VW meanwhile was up 18.4
percent in January and with 8,950 vehicles sold it
closed down a usually yawning gap in this sector to just
under a six hundred unit deficit. GM with 6,513 LCV
sales was almost flat (-0.8 percent) while Ford with
5,171 units was down 2.3 percent.
In month-on-month terms in the LCV sector Fiat
Automóveis followed the Brazilian market which dropped
27.8 percent down. For Fiat, three and a half thousand
sales less than December 2011 added up to a
month-on-month drop of 26.7 percent. Second placed VW
had a slightly softer landing, losing 12.5 percent
month-on-month, while GM's bounce upwards in the
passenger car segment wasn't replicated in its LCV
portfolio which tanked 33.3 percent from December to
January.
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