Italian car sales slipped 0.3% last month but new models helped push Fiat’s sales higher and its market share up to 29.6% from near a historic low, Transport Ministry data showed on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
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A breakdown of registrations showed Fiat sales were up 3.1% from October 2002, helped by a healthy 16.6% leap at its sporty Alfa Romeo arm as its revamped 156 hit the road, the report said.
The redesigned Fiat Panda, launched in mid-September, jumped into second place on Italy’s best-seller list, behind the usual huge lead of the larger Punto, Reuters said.
Fiat has regularly said a flood of new models will revive its sales in the last months of 2003, the first test of a deep restructuring to pull the industrial group out of crisis, the news agency noted.
“Obviously the new models are having a positive effect. I wasn’t expecting a jump in October but rather towards the end of 2003 so today’s data bodes well for the rest of the year,” a Milan-based analyst, who declined to be named, told Reuters.
Fiat reportedly said last week that orders for the Panda and the new Lancia Ypsilon, designed to take on BMW’s Mini, were a month ahead of target but the shortage of finished cars weighed on Lancia sales, which fell 11% year-on-year.
“Lancia suffered from there not being enough Ypsilons made so all those orders have not yet been turned into full registrations,” industry body Anfia said in a statement cited by Reuters which noted that, despite the lag, the Ypsilon took 10th place in the best-seller list.
According to Reuters, Fiat said it had 75,000 orders for the Panda and 35,000 for the Ypsilon and aims to sell 70,000 Pandas and 40,000 Ypsilons this year.
Reuters said Fiat wants 30.2% of its key home market this year, the same as in 2002 when tumbling sales pulled the 104-year-old carmaker into crisis, but the target looks hard to meet as Fiat’s Italian market share so far this year stands at 28%.
Among other car makers, Mazda and Nissan Italian sales more than doubled from last October but Renault and Ford – which have eaten into Fiat’s market share over the last two years – dropped off, Reuters said.
