While the rest of its big rivals struggled to make an impact in Europe last month, Fiat Group Automobiles outperformed a falling market to post a 6.5 percent year-on-year rise in sales, with all three of its major brands, Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Lancia, making healthy gains. The data for February has just been revealed by European motor manufacturer trade body ACEA.

The European-wide markets (counting the all EU member nations plus the EFTA signatories) gave up the positive start it made to the year last month, and was down 2.5 percent year-on-year in February as 1,083,511 new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles were registered, just under 30,000 less that was the case in February 2006. Fiat was boosted in particular by the fact that its domestic market was up 5.7 pct year-on-year. 223,504 new vehicles were registered in Italy during February making it the biggest European market last month as the usual European leader, Germany, slumped by 15.1 pct year-on-year after 183,258 vehicles were sold there last month. Italy was actually the only major winners as the other big new car markets also fell: France was down 1.8 pct, the UK (which sharply contracted ahead of the usual March registration plate change) lost 3.2 pct, and Spain fell 4.4 pct.

Fiat Group Automobiles meanwhile outperformed the rest of the "big six" carmakers, up by 6.4 pct. Europe's dominant giant, the VW/Audi Group, gained 1.4 pct, while second placed PSA Peugeot-Citroën dropped 4.9 pct. Third placed Ford gained 4.5 pct while fourth-placed GM lost 1.2 pct. Of significance is that while Fiat have now steamed a healthy margin past Renault, the Italian firm was less than 10,000 unit sales behind Ford and GM during February. Apart from Toyota (up 13.1 pct) the rest of the top ten also fared quite badly in February: Renault were down 12.1 pct, DaimlerChrysler (-7.5 pct) and BMW Group (-9.9 pct).

With 101,747 unit registrations in February, Fiat Group Automobiles was up 6.5 pct year-on-year (95,577 in Feb 2006). This raised their market share year-on-year from 8.6 to 9.4 pct, a terrific effort which is now being helped by the arrival of the new C-segment Fiat Bravo model.
 

Splitting up the brands, Fiat (including LCV) gained 6.2 pct year-on-year, with 76,987 new sold vehicles last month as opposed to 72,487 during the same period last year. Lancia had an excellent month as demand for the new Ypsilon begins to bite, and it was up 9.4 pct after selling 12,034 new vehicles last month compared to 10,995 during February 2006. With 12,499 cars sold last month, as opposed to 11,828 in February 2006, Alfa Romeo wrapped up a superb month for Fiat Group Automobiles, the "sporty" brand thus up 5.7 pct year-on-year.

This means that the Fiat brand raises its European-wide market share from 6.5 to 7.1 pct year-on-year, while Lancia was up 0.1 to 1.1 pct, and Alfa Romeo also up by a similar amount to 1.2 pct.

After the first two months of 2007, Fiat Group Automobiles has sold 213,675 vehicles compared to 201,596 during the same period last year, and is the fastest-growing group of the "big six", up 6.0 pct. Market share is up 0.5 pct year-on-year to 8.9 pct. The Fiat brand (including LCV) has shifted 162,571 vehicles so far this year compared to 153,683 in Jan-Feb 2006 to put it up 5.8 pct year-on-year; Lancia is up 5.3 pct year-on-year (23,791 as opposed to 22,594) while Alfa Romeo, with 26,484 units during the first two months, compared to 24,531 during the same period of the previous year, performed the best of all the Fiat brands, up by 8.0 pct.

These performances meant that the Fiat brand (including LCV) sees its total European market share so far this year climbing from 6.4 pct to 6.8 pct year-on-year, while Lancia is up 0.1 pct to 1.0 pct, and Alfa Romeo is also up 0.1 pct to 1.1 pct.