Car market, Italy 2025 ends with a 2.1 % drop

Despite the recovery in December, which recorded 2.2 per cent more registrations than in 2024, thanks in part to last October's incentives, the car market in Italy closed the year with a 2.1 per cent contraction in volumes, trailing the major European markets.

In terms of volumes, the Italian market absorbed 1,525,722 cars, a 'very low' level, points out the Centro Studi Promotor, 'not only compared to 2019, i.e. the year before the pandemic in which 1,917,106 cars were sold, but also and above all compared to the 2,494,115 cars sold in 2007, i.e. the year before the crisis generated by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers.

The car crisis in Italy and Europe, points out Gian Primo Quagliano (Centro Studi Promotor), is not due to the renunciation of the car by a significant number of users, but 'has occurred by postponing the replacement of millions of cars already ready for scrapping with easily imaginable effects on traffic safety and environmental protection'.

Against this backdrop, some of the Stellantis brands, which grew 4.6% for the month, had a complicated month, with Peugeot, Citroen, Alfa Romeo and Jeep registering declining registrations, while Fiat went from 6,000 to 9,000 registrations in December and ended the year, as a brand, at 2024 levels. At Volkswagen, Audi did well, closing 2025 with 1,000 more registrations than in 2024, while the main brand of the German manufacturer set the pace and ended the month and year on negative ground, -17.04 and -7.6% respectively.

Byd's run stands out: with 3,347 cars registered in the month, it enters the Top 10 of car manufacturers in Italy for the first time. "BYD establishes itself as the only brand to reach this milestone, without selling any vehicles with a combustion engine and setting clear growth plans on electrification," the Chinese group underlines in a note. The brand exceeds 3% market share in December and almost multiplies by 10 the registrations in 2025 (23,000) compared to 2024 (2,700).