Following the moderate growth of 0.6% in June the Italian True Fleet Market was in very good shape in July which turned out to be the best July since 2008 with more than 29,000 passenger car registrations and a double-digit growth rate of 11.3%. The volume on both Dealerships/ Manufacturer (+ 6.6%) and Short-Term Rentals (+ 3.4%) increased over July last year while the growth for the Private market was slightly lower with “only” a + 2.5%. Consequently, the Total Market (which had one working day more than in July ’17) achieved around 165,500 registrations and scored a surplus of 4.8%.
Brand performance
For Fiat the July was challenging with – 3.9% and the third month in a row they lagged behind the registration volume of the respective month in 2017. But of course, Fiat stayed clearly in the lead. Volkswagen had a very positive month with + 39.7% and jumped from rank number five into 2nd position followed by Audi, Mercedes, Ford (all in the red), Renault and BMW. Toyota (8th, + 63.4%) gained two positions in the ranking. Especially the performance of the CH-R and the Yaris helped the Japanese brand to achieve a new record market share of 5.2%. Nissan even jumped from rank number fifteen to 9th with an outstanding + 133.7%. Beside the SUV models Qashqai and X-Trail the Leaf was contributing significantly to Nissan’s success. This also had a strong impact on the fuel type shares overall in True Fleets but we will come to that in a minute. Alfa Romeo took the last spot in the top 10 with a gap of less than 60 registrations to Peugeot in 11th place.
A bit further down the ranking Porsche is certainly worth to be mentioned. The manufacturer from Stuttgart was able to register its highest monthly volume in the Italian True Fleet Market up to now as the whole model range was above July 2017 (even if it was only a single one for the 911).
Fuel type performance
As mentioned above the full electric Nissan Leaf was a big surprise. 351 fleet registrations (most of them on Long Term Rental companies) were by far the highest monthly volume the Leaf ever achieved in Italy. Unsurprisingly it led the ranking of EV models followed by the Smart ForTwo and Renault Zoe who both had impressive growth rates as well. In total the share of full electric vehicles climbed to 1.7% in July. This is not only a new record for the Italian fleet market but also higher as in Belgium, France, Germany, Spain and UK. The appetite of Italian companies for Alternative powertrains was underlined by another record as Hybrids were also rocketing with more than 2,200 new registrations (+ 151.1%) and a share of 7.5%. Let’s see if this trend towards “green” fuel types will continue.
