Failed transition and lagging models, Stellantis loses share in Italy and Europe
After the US, a market problem also opens up in Europe - In October, Volkswagen and Toyota registered more than Fiat, which fell below the 10% threshold
3' min read
3' min read
Stellantis' volume crisis in the United States, with market surpluses and the bellyaches of small investors, contributed to the break between the Group and CEO Carlos Tavares. But also worrying is the trend in registrations in recent months in Italy and Europe, where the company's 14 brands (14 plus one with Leapmotor) have lost market share. The latest available data, relating to registrations in November, down overall by 10% compared to the same month in 2023, confirms the difficult phase especially for the brands in the Group's Italian galaxy. Starting with Fiat, which sold 8,700 cars last month compared to 15,000 last year, surpassed by Toyota/Lexus and Volkswagen.
The historic Italian brand, which recorded a 41% drop in the month - down 16% since the beginning of the year - is suffering from a series of negative factors such as the wait for the new Panda model produced in Serbia, the halt in sales of the Fiat 500 with a thermic engine and the slowdown of the electric model, as well as the long lead time for the development of the hybrid version. In Stellantis, sales of Lancia and Alfa Romeo also slowed down. Overall, Stellantis lost 24% in volume in November, bringing the result down by almost 10 points since the beginning of the year.
In the area (with UK and Efta) Stellantis lost more than 16% of registrations in the EU area in October compared to a year ago, bringing its market share in the first ten months of the year from 17% to 15%, ten points behind Volkswagen. Since the beginning of the year, the drop was 7.1%, the heaviest among the major European automobile groups. Paying the heaviest price is the Fiat brand, which lost half a point of market share (from 3.1 to 2.5), Ds, the premium brand brought in as a dowry by PSA, which in the meantime has seen the first production start-up of its new model in Melfi, and finally Lancia, which recently launched the new Ypsilon and which, again in Melfi, will see the new Lancia Gamma born, but only in the third quarter of 2026.
On the Italian market, where Stellantis remains the leading group in terms of volume, the drop was even heavier, with market share shrinking from 32.6 to 29.5 since the beginning of the year, to 24.8% in November alone. The domestic market saw the Fiat brand drop below the 'psychological' threshold of 10% market share in October, and for two months in a row the German Volkswagen and Toyota alone registered more than the historic Italian brand. And so Stellantis is, among the big European players, the one that is suffering the most on the volume front, a suffering that is reflected in production, down more than 40% since the beginning of the year for passenger cars, 30% if we also consider commercial vehicles. There is enough then - even on the European front - to justify the crisis that has overwhelmed relations between the Group and its CEO.
Underlying the uphill phase on the market are several factors, some linked to the difficulties of the moment and the general slowdown in the automotive sector in the old continent, others more rooted in the Group's industrial choices. The stalled transition and the long and difficult gestation of strategic choices on the future of certain key models such as the Panda and Fiat 500 have weighed heavily. So much so that Fiat slipped to fourth place on the European market among the Group's brands, after Peugeot, Opel and Citroen.
