Marchionne Warns: Attenzione! Vendite Terribile!
Chrysler most likely will announce record growth in market share for March. No such luck for Chrysler’s owner FIAT. Again, Fiat’s Sergio Marchionne is getting in front of a horrible story in order to soften its inevitable blow. Sergio told Italy’s newswire AGI that “March will be a terrible year for the Italian market.”
Marchionne sees registrations of new cars drop by around 38%-40%, and that “not just because of strike actions carried out by transporters.”
FIAT’s CEO forecasts that around 1.5 million vehicles might be sold in 2012 in Italy, down from 1.75 million in 2011. Until recently, Italy was a 2 million unit market.
Fiat traditionally owns about 30 percent of the market and takes the full brunt of the bottom that’s falling out. To make matters worse, FIAT’s market share in Italy has dropped to 28 percent. FIAT’s market share elsewhere in Europe also is tanking.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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No wonder Fiat's market share is tanking, given Marchionne's never-ending product freezes: http://europe.autonews.com/article/20120330/ANE/120329929/1193/marchionnes-product-freeze-adds-to-fiats-troubles-in-europe One would have hoped Marchionne would have realized that delaying or cancelling product launches is a bad idea by now, but unfortunately not. Fiat cannot possibly survive such gross negligence for much longer.
He could just 'Pull a Ghosn' and tell Italy to kick rocks. Selling more than one Fiat branded model in the US wouldn't hurt either...
Marchionne needs to cut all he can out of Italy and Western Europe and concentrate new capacity needs in the US. I can't imagine the need to assemble cars in Western Europe at all. Ask GM how they like being a European also-ran with their production capacity heavily Western European? Not everyone can be VW.
Can anybody explain exactly what that sign is trying to warn about?