Bucking the market’s downward trend, Fiat announced on Thursday that its European sales were up 14.7 percent in March. On the whole, the European market saw new car sales decline by 9 percent during the month of March.
According to the Detroit Free Press, Fiat was the only of the European car makers to see a sales growth in March. Fiat also saw a significant increase it its market sharing, growing from 7.4 percent in March 2008 to 9.2 percent last month.
Like Ford, Fiat saw significant sales gains in Germany, posting a massive improvement of over 200 percent. Overall, Germany car sales were up 40 percent in March, thanks to government scrappage incentives.
Fiat improved sales in France by 25 percent last month, although sales in its home country of Italy remained flat.
Chrysler is currently trying to forge an alliance with the Italian automaker, with Fiat’s sales success speaking volumes about the possible tie-up. Most of Fiat’s sales success was in small cars – the type of vehicles Chrysler is lacking the most.
