Last year, the first full year of Stellantis as a group, the European new car market posted the lowest registrations levels since 1985. According to JATO, a total of 11.75 million units were registered in 28 European nations, down by 1.6% vs 2020 and by 26% vs 2019. The lockdowns during 2020 were followed by the semi-conductors crisis that forced the halt of production of many cars all over the continent.
Within this negative context, Stellantis was able to place 21 of its cars in the top 100 best-selling cars ranking. Five of them, the Peugeot 208, Peugeot 2008, Opel/Vauxhall Corsa, Fiat/Abarth 500 and Citroen C3, hit the top 10, making of Stellantis the group with the highest number of topsellers there (VW placed 2 models, Renault Group 2, and Toyota 1).
From the 21 models, 5 were Peugeot, 5 were Opel/Vauxhall, 4 were Fiat, 4 Citroen, 2 Jeep and 1 Lancia.
The Panda, the strongest one
Among all the models of Stellantis, the Fiat Panda retained the highest market share within a single market. It was the case in Italy, where this city-car made up 7.58% of total market registrations. Despite its age (it was launched in 2011), the Panda is still the main choice for the majority of the consumers in Italy due to its price and practicality. However, the Panda is only popular at home, as only 16% of its volume was sold outside Italy.
The second strongest in terms of market share within a specific nation was the Peugeot 208 in France, with 5.31% market share. It was actually the top-selling car there, outselling the Clio for the first time since 2004. The demand in France represented 45% of the European registrations of the 208. It was followed by the 2008 also in France, with a market share of 4.55%.
Then, there is the Peugeot 2008 in Portugal (4.36%), the Opel Corsa in Croatia (4.17%), Fiat/Abarth 500 in Hungary (4.05%), Citroen C3 in France (3.94%), Peugeot 208 in Portugal (3.29%) and Fiat/Abarth 500 in Italy (3.26%).
Jeep drove growth
The evolution between 2019 (pre-pandemic) and 2021 was not good for the group. It lost 1.35 points of share between these years, to 20.26%. That’s the worst drop among all OEMs, except for Ford, which lost 1.61 points. The main reason for this negative result is the declining sales of Opel/Vauxhall, and the very bad commercial performance of the Astra.
Good but not enough was the increase of Jeep’s market share from 1.03% in 2019 to 1.10% last year. It was the brand of Stellantis with the highest growth, followed by DS and Peugeot. Jeep continues to be strong in Italy, where it sold half of its European volume in 2021. Nevertheless, the its offer is still limited so the sales volume can’t do much to offset the big loses posted by Opel, Citroen, Alfa Romeo and Fiat. Jeep needs more products.
More insigths to come soon.
Fiat Group World 
One way to give Jeep new products would be to stop selling the Stelvio as an Alfa Romeo and rebadge it as a Jeep instead. The same thing should be done with the upcoming Tonale, which should be sold as the Jeep Tonale. After all, both of these vehicles are already Jeeps for all intents and purposes, and thus it makes no sense for those vehicles to pose as Alfa Romeos. Furthermore, Alfa Romeo is a brand that does not need SUVs and crossovers in its lineup, and the removal of the Stelvio and Tonale would mitigate a very real risk of the brand suffering the kind of credibility loss Porsche is now suffering as a sports car manufacturer after its ill-fated decision to launch the Cayenne a while back.
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We definitely live in two different worlds. Porsche is more profitable than ever. Its reputation is by far in a better position than many other premium brands.
AR needs more SUVs, and not sedans, coupes or wagons that no one will buy.
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Totally agree with you Felipe. Well, except on this: apart from SUVs Alfa needs coupes, cabrios, sport sedans… Alfa is sportiness. Heart and Soul. Lower sales that type of cars may have but if they are good enough, they can be expensive enough to make profit.
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Indeed we live in two different worlds. I live in reality, whereas you live in the artificial bubble world of an automotive analyst, at the mercy of the whims of the automakers that pay your salary, and thus ironically not in a position to be an objective analyst. Hence your inane drivel that Alfa Romeo needs more SUVs (no, it most certainly doesn’t, that’s Jeep’s territory) and that Porsche’s reputation is in a better position than many other premium brands (no, it isn’t, in fact it’s such dire straits that there’s now an entire generation of youngsters who think of Porsche as something other than a sports car manufacturer).
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It’s lovely to see people like you reading my pieces. How can anyone that thinks that I’m not in a “position to be an objective analyst” read the person’s articles? Funny!
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What stops Stlantis to launch Pulse and Mobi in European market. Looking at the list those models should do well in Europe.
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Why a Mobi when there’s already the Panda? the Pulse was conceived for the consumer in Latin America: lower quality standards to meet the lower purchase power of the consumers.
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The Pulse and Mobi are third-world vehicles, poorly suited to the expectations of drivers in the civilized world, just like the “Fiat Tipo”, aka Tofaş Egea, which should never have been launched in the Europe in the first place and has severely cheapened Fiat’s image. To rectify matters, the Fiat brand should drop the “Tipo” and invest in models that can compete price-wise and feature-wise with similar brands like Volkswagen.
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Well… your civilized world is on the brink of a major war! So maybe is better to live in “third world countries”.
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Chip crisis won’t affect much if the car factories prezervatif to manufacture manual transmission cars rather than automatic transmission. In the usa people prefer automatic transission very much but in europe manual transmission is highly prefered. For my oppinion automatic transmission increases traffic jams because all people with lack of good psychomotor skills get into the traffic with the help of automatic transmission cars.
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