The Italian fleet market put in a strong start to the year, although private registrations didn’t fare so well, according to latest Dataforce figures.

Alfa’s true fleet registrations were up 134.3% in January, led by the Stelvio.

Following the fleet market’s upbeat performance in 2017, January continued in the same vein with a 10.1% rise in true fleet registrations. Special channels were up 27.6% but the private market fell 4.7%. Overall, the total market finished a shade under 190,000 registrations or up 3.8% on last January.

Within the manufacturers’ league table, Fiat continued to rule the roost but was one of three brands inside the top 10 to have a negative month. Ford, in second, produced a solid growth of 83.7%, led predominantly by the new Fiesta as well as Kuga.

The next slots were taken up by VW, Audi, Mercedes, BMW with the first three recording positive results while BMW was one of the negative growth manufacturers – alongside Fiat and Peugeot – inside the top 10.

Jeep came in seventh, registering +130.6% growth over January 2017. The new Compass carried the major volume growth.

Renault (eighth) and Alfa Romeo (ninth) were both positive but it was Alfa that stood out as the last of the big growth brands, beating Jeep’s growth rate with +134.3% and jumping nine places into ninth position, led by the Stelvio.

Peugeot finished off the top 10 brands for January and while it was a negative growth month the 5008 and 3008 volumes kept the brand within the top 10.

Dataforce also looked at the varying fortunes of the compact car segment to question if it’s become a victim of the SUV’s rise – and concluded this depends on the segment. Within the true fleet sector for 2017, compact cars had a record year with the most registrations seen since 2005 while in the private market, compact cars were down by -0.9% in 2017 when compared to 2016 and was less than half the volume seen in 2005 – also the private market’s record year.

For 2018 the picture may well be something similar looking at the January figures; while compact cars in true fleet took a small hit dropping 2.9%, private registrations were down 19.5%. The Fiat Tipo, VW Golf and Opel Astra were hit hardest in the private market, while in true fleet the biggest drops came from Peugeot 308, Opel Astra, and Audi A3.