Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) sold 22,300 new passenger cars in Brazil last month, which was slightly up year-on-year but missed the market’s strong gains; however in the Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV) sector it continued to dominate the rankings despite being slightly negative against a positive market.
In total the Brazilian new car market saw 172,821 new registrations last month which was up 9.4% year-on-year and continued the theme of the strong gains seen through January and February.
FCA gained a thousand units year-on-year thanks to the sales of Fiat and Jeep models during March which put it up 4.7% on the same month last year.
The Fiat brand accounted for 13,372 units but went the opposite way to the rising market as it fell 2% when compared to the 13,649 units shifted in the same month last year. FCA’s second brand exposed in Brazil, Jeep, was up 16.8% to 8,904 units.
That total of 22,300 units in March positioned FCA as the third best-selling carmaking group on the market for the month behind GM (27,509 units) and Volkswagen (24,196 units) but well ahead of Ford (18,296 units) and Hyundai (15,397 units) which wrapped up the top five in Brazil.
For the first quarter of the year, 451,504 new passenger cars have been sold in Brazil and that represented a 15.7% rise and sixty thousand units over the opening three months of last year.
FCA has amassed 58,328 sales for the year-to-date and is up two thousand seven hundred units and 4.8% over the same period last year. That breaks down to 36,284 sales for the Fiat brand, which a couple of dozen units up on the same period last year. The Jeep brand meanwhile has 21,956 sales for the year-to-date and is up 13.7%.
In the LCV sector the Fiat brand continued to dominate proceedings during March but its 9,949 sales last month was down 1.3% year-on-year and underperformed the overall sector which was up 5.5% to 27,367 units.
Despite a sluggish month Fiat, with almost ten thousand units sold, it was comfortably the LCV sector leader with its closest rivals, VW and Toyota, finishing March on 4,735 units and 3,228 units respectively.
For the first quarter of the year the Brazilian LCV sector has seen 76,154 sales and is up 11.7% on the opening three months of last year. Fiat, meanwhile, is on 27,764 units and despite not matching the overall market’s surge is up a very solid 5.7%.
Also in the LCV sector, IVECO sold 197 units in Brazil last month which was up by a healthy fifth year-on-year and it has now reached 569 sales for the first quarter and is up by over one third on the same period last year.
