Car market recovers 4% volume in September in Italy

A breath of fresh air for the Italian car market, which registered 126,679 cars in September, an increase of 4.1% over the same month in 2024. The final balance for the first nine months closes with 1.167,437 registrations and consolidates a 2.9% drop on last year. According to the Centro Studi Promotor, the result of the first nine months of the year, projected over the entire year 2025 and taking into account the seasonality of sales, "makes it possible to forecast a registration volume of 1,489,164 cars for 2025, with a drop of 4.5% over 2024 and a much more substantial drop (-22.3%) compared to 2019".

In this context, Stellantis tries to reverse the trend of registrations on the Italian market as well and recovers, for the Fiat and Alfa Romeo brands, more than 30% in volumes compared to September 20204. Among the Group's French brands, Citroen almost tripled its volumes for the month, while Peugeot posted a 17% drop and Jeep remained at last year's levels.

The Volkswagen brand lost almost 2% in the month and 5% since the beginning of the year, while Audi did well, unlike its 'cousins' BMW and Mercedes, which lost 6% and 8% respectively in the month. Renault fared poorly, with a significant drop in September and a 13.7% drop in volumes since the beginning of the year.

Chinese brands accelerate the race in the Italian market with MG consolidating its first place in terms of volumes, up 17% for the month and 30% since the beginning of the year, and a market share of 3.35%. Byd made a leap in September and increased its registered cars from just over a thousand to 14 thousand from January to September. Omoda and Jaecoo, the brands owned by the Chery Group, also accelerated their run and almost reached 1% market share since the beginning of the year. Tesla remains bogged down and steadily loses 30% of its volumes compared to 2024, while Toyota recovers and grows in the month by 2%.

The September result therefore seems not to have been affected too much by the news about the incentives, which will start on 15 October. The measure is limited to the purchase of electric cars against the compulsory scrapping of a more polluting model. "The size of the incentives is quite significant, so there should be a positive response,' argues Gian Primo Quagliano, 'but limiting the number of potential beneficiaries to people with not particularly high incomes, while appreciable from a social point of view, does not seem very effective in supporting sales of electric cars, which are certainly not affordable.