Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) saw its sales in France slide by 5% during December, dragged down by the Fiat brand, but that it didn't stop the carmaker ending the full year up 7.1% off the back of a total of 141,631 sales with all its brands finishing in positive territory.
In total the French market saw 232,939 new cars and LCVs combined finding buyers during the final month of last year which was down less than three thousand units and 1.1% on December 2016.
FCA notched up 11,510 new cars and LCVs combined sold during the month just gone which gave it a 4.94% share of the total market but when compared to 12,111 sales during the same month last year that equates to a fall of 5% and underperformed the market.
Volume driver Fiat had a bad month as it fell 10% to 8,103 units - it registered 9,002 new vehicles in December 2016 - and that lacklustre performance dragged the whole group down. Alfa Romeo was postive and beat the market, up 3.6% to 944 units, a gain of 33 units on the December of the previous year for a 0.41% share of the total market for the month.
Ferrari and Maserati combined added 117 sales in December which was a fall of more than one-third year-on-year while, finally, Jeep brand was up 24% to 1,059 units. Elsewhere IVECO was up 9.3% to 1,033 units.
For the full year France enjoyed a positive direction to the market, up 5.1% and almost one hundred and twenty five thousand units to 2,549,390 sales of passenger and light commercial vehicles combined.
FCA finished the full year with a robust performance, beating the overall market's gains to sell 141,631 units, up 7.1% when compared with 132,246 units during 2016. As a result it's overall market share rose from 5.45% for the full year of 2016 to 5.56% last year.
Fiat brand ended the year on 104,889 units, up over five thousand units and 5.8% on the previous year to lead out a positive full year for all the FCA brands in France during 2017. Fiat's total market share for 2017 came it at 4.11%, up slightly on 4.09% in 2016.
Alfa Romeo saw a spike in demand thanks to the new Giulia and Stelvio hitting the showrooms and 9,267 units for the full year just gone compared to 7,362 units the previous year was up by 25.9% and raised the 'sports' brand's share of total French market sales from 0.30% in 2016 to 0.36% last year.
Elsewhere Ferrari and Maserati achieved a combined 1,012 units sold last year, up 32 units and 3.3% year-on-year. Finally, IVECO was up 6.2% year-on-year to 14,356 units for the full year just gone and FCA's Jeep brand gained 9.5% year-on-year to 12,073 units.
