Marchionne Warns: Attenzione! Vendite Terribile!

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

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
Bertel Schmitt

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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 7 comments
  • Asdf Asdf on Apr 01, 2012

    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.

    • See 2 previous
    • Toucan Toucan on Apr 01, 2012

      The road sign from this picture... is beyond LOL. Bertel's so cruel and yet so accurately applied sense of humor in this context, mocking Mr Pullover, is such a defining aspect of this unique TTAC website :) Read the comments under the article linked in the first comment here. So true and scary at the same time they are. So much state of the art technology had and have they, the FIAT. JTD, T-Jet, TBI, Multiair - and now they consider selling chinese made cars in Europe. Meanwhile the Hyundai is floating in money and only gaining marketshare.

  • Acuraandy Acuraandy on Apr 01, 2012

    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...

  • Dr.Nick Dr.Nick on Apr 02, 2012

    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.

  • Jpolicke Jpolicke on Apr 02, 2012

    Can anybody explain exactly what that sign is trying to warn about?

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