Following a dip in May, the Italian true fleet market returned to growth in June, albeit with a modest increase of 0.6%.

Italy true fleet grew in June following a dip in May

Looking on the performance for the first half year of 2018 in Italy, the passenger car market was down overall by 1.2%. The cause is attributed mainly to a reluctance of private customers, who registered 4.2% fewer new vehicles from January to June. Special channels registrations remained constant (+0.2%), but true fleets shone with +7.1%, consequently pushing the segment to a new all-time record for the first six months, according to latest Dataforce figures.

Fiat was in the red with -17.9%, but stayed in the lead nevertheless.

Audi gained four positions and jumped into second place thanks to a growth of 24.6%, due to good performance by the A3, A4 and SUV models Q2, Q3 and Q5.

Volkswagen (+ 6.0%) ranked third followed by Mercedes in fourth place, which was the only brand in the top 10 to keep its position from June last year.

Ford and Renault each suffered double-digit reductions, while BMW in seventh place grew by 16.2%. Jeep jumped into eighth position helped by its new generation Compass, with growth of 71.8%, and Toyota finished in ninth (70.9%) after leapfrogging four positions, thanks to Yaris and C-HR. Peugeot completed the top-10 ranking this month but only 35 registrations ahead of Alfa Romeo.

The growth in True Fleets in June was again primarily fuelled by SUVs (+ 32.3%) with no less than six models in the top 7.

Michael Gergen from Dataforce commented: “With 45.1% the Compact SUVs are dominating in the first six months of 2018 followed by Small (25.5%), Medium (21.8%) and Large (7.5%). And while the leader of the Large SUV is the Land Rover Range Rover Velar the other three classes are in the hand of the FCA group with Fiat 500X, Jeep Compass and Alfa Romeo Stelvio claiming the podium positions in their respective model size.”