Struggling Fiat Auto will look outside Italy to revive its fortunes, the company’s new boss Herbert Demel said. Fiat will launch a product offensive and try to boost sales in other western European countries and the new EU accession countries.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
“Fiat Auto is too Italy-dependent,” Demel told Automotive News Europe. “Our medium-term target is 30%, plus or minus 1%, of the Italian market,” he said. “To dream of reaching 35% is simply unrealistic. Fiat Auto has room to improve in France and the UK and needs a lot of improvement in Germany.”
Demel said Fiat also must exploit the opportunities connected with the expansion of the European Union to 25 countries.
“We have a well-established presence in Poland and a good knowledge of these markets,” he said.
Fiat Auto will achieve its loss reduction thanks to aggressive cost cutting, which calls for €1 billion savings in 2004 and growing production volumes.
“Given our current and coming product portfolio, I foresee Fiat Auto growing around 5% a year in the coming three to four years,” Demel said.
At that pace, Fiat Auto will return to more than two million units by 2007. In 2003, Fiat Auto worldwide sales decreased 8.8% to less than 1.7 million units.
Demel reconfirmed that Fiat Auto is set to reach an operative breakeven in 2005 and a net breakeven in 2006. “We are on track,” he said. “Up to now, I have no indication why we should not be able to succeed.”
The 2003-2006 period is dedicated to Fiat Auto recovery. In this time span, the company will introduce 21 new and restyled models.
