Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) might be suffering a dismal 2018 on most European markets but in France it’s on a real roll and with 7,883 passengers cars sold last month it was up by a quarter year-on-year. Its share of the market for the month rose to a very respectable 5.14% as a result.
FCA easily beat the overall French new passenger market too, which after a good recent run was almost flat (+0.2%) at 191,705 units during May while if the imported brands are split away, FCA's sale result was even more robust as non-French OEM sales when combined together were down 6.2%.
The Fiat brand enjoyed a strong fifth month of the year and was up 20.1% and more than one thousand units to 7,397 units to take a 3.86% share of total market sales.
Alfa Romeo also gained useful ground in France last month, up 7.2% to 787 units, while luxury Italian brands, Ferrari and Maserati, sold a combined 94 cars which was up by a quarter year-on-year. Finally for FCA, the Jeep brand was up 72.7% to 1,577 units.
After the first five months of 2018 a total of 935,937 passenger cars have been sold in France and that's up by 3.5% on the same period last year while FCA easily outperforms the market as it's sales have soared 17.1% to 44,154 units and a 4.72% share of the market.
In fact while FCA sees demand rising, imported brands when combined have seen sales slide 5% for the year-to-date. That strong year long sales run makes FCA the second best performing carmaking group on the French market in 2018 in year-on-year terms, behind only Hyundai, which is up 22.5% to 34,227 units.
The Fiat brand leads the volumes for FCA and is up 14.1% to 33,901 units and a 3.62% share of the market for the year-to-date.
Fiat’s best selling model in France for the year-to-date is the 500 with 11,946 finding buyers to make it the seventeenth best selling car on this market for the period. The 500X weighs in with 6,447 sales, making it market’s thirty-third best seller after five months while the Tipo is four places further back having notched up 5,389 sales. The final Fiat model amongst the top-100 best sellers so far this year is the Panda with has totted up 4,921 sales.
Meanwhile, Alfa Romeo is up 12.6% to 3,783 units for the year-to-date, Ferrari and Maserati have a combined 395 sales for the year-to-date, down 0.8% on the same five month period last year, and, finally for FCA, Jeep is up 44.8% to 6,074 units which is almost entirely split up between the Renegade (3,107 units) and the Compass (2,795 units).
