Italy’s true fleet market, like the most of the EU-5, had a tough April, with a year-on-year fall of 9.8%, the first monthly decline since October 2013. However the figures from Dataforce show the YtD performance is still very positive with a 7.0% rise.

Dataforce says the Stelvio’s performance will be very interesting to watch – it’s already ranked 11th in the SUV segment.

April was even tougher for the private market, with a double-digit drop of 12.5% but YTD, like in true fleet, remained positive with a 5.8% rise. Italy’s total market finished with a little under 165,000 registrations but was also down by 3.7%

Only a few brands were able to resist the downturn in April. Market leader Fiat (+0.6%), Ford (5th, +0.4%) and Toyota (8th, +0.2%) achieved almost the same amount of fleet registrations as in April 2016. Opel in 10th (+4.4%) and Smart in 11th (+18.3%) were only nine registrations apart, with both showing strong fleet performances in the rankings.

Most notable was the performance from Alfa Romeo, which jumped from rank number 21 into seventh position behind Fiat, Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen, Ford and Audi with a remarkable growth rate of 341.3%.

Alfa’s top-seller, the Giulietta, scored a plus of 180.1% and ranked second in the compact car segment behind Fiat Tipo, with additional brand volume coming from the new entries, Giulia and Stelvio. This in turn helped to raise Alfa’s market share in true fleets to 4.5%; its highest share since December 2012.

And the Stelvio SUV will be an especially interesting vehicle to monitor over the next few months. Introduced into the market just three months ago, the Stelvio is already ranked 11th in the SUV segment for April and it will probably be just a matter of time before it reaches the SUV podium.

Volvo also had a very positive April with a growth of 72.5% and achieving a market share of 1.9%. In contrast to the general trend this increase was not only driven by SUV models. The V40/Cross Country more than doubled its registrations over April 2016 but the larger V60 had an especially good month, with growth of 228%, pushing itself to rank number six in its segment behind BMW 3 Series, Audi A4, Mercedes C Class, Volkswagen Passat and Alfa Romeo Giulia.

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