By George Guimarães | 9/12/23 | Translated by Jorge Meditsch
With a 22% market share and 88 thousand licensed vehicles more than Volkswagen – the second in the ranking – Fiat can already celebrate its third consecutive year at the Brazilian market’s lead.
The third title was only possible due to its light commercial vehicle performance. Considering only passenger cars, the Italian brand was second in 2022 and 2021, after Chevrolet and Volkswagen.
The German brand occupied first place in the first eight months this year by a tiny 300-car advantage over Fiat: 174.9 thousand versus 174.6 thousand units.
Fiat owes much of its protagonism in Brazil in the last three years to light commercial vehicles. Among the main brands, it is the one that depends more on vans and, particularly, pickups.
From close to 297 thousand vehicles Fiat sold from January through August, 122.1 thousand belong to this segment, 41% of the total. The pickups Strada and Toro account for 107.9 thousand.
In the same period, Volkswagen sold 33.8 thousand light commercial vehicles, corresponding to just 16% of its sales, an index slightly under Chevrolet’s, which sold 37.7 thousand pickups, 18% of the brand’s sales.
Toyota, with close to 25% of sales concentrated on the pickup Hilux, and Renault, with 20% owed to the Oroch and the Master van, also show that Fiat’s dependence on light commercials is a point out of the curve in the market.
By itself, the Strada – Brazil’s best-seller in the last two years and fast approaching the third championship – already registers 73.8 thousand deliveries versus Chevrolet Onix’s 63.7 thousand. Its performance accounts for over one-fourth of Fiat’s total sales in Brazil since 2020.
If it were an independent brand, the compact pickup would be close to the seventh positioned Renault, which delivered 76.9 thousand automobiles and light commercial vehicles to the customers and much ahead of Honda (48.3 thousand), currently in the eighth place.
Nothing indicates Fiat’s intention to abandon the light commercial vehicles’ strength to keep ahead of the Brazilian market. It would be no surprise if, already in 2023 or 2024, the segment weight in the brand’s total sales grows even more.
Yet this year, Fiat should launch the Titano, its first large pickup assembled on a frame chassis. A clone of Peugeot Landtrack made by Nordex in Uruguay, it would have a diesel engine and a cargo capacity to face well-known models such as the Toyota Hilux, Ford Ranger, Chevrolet S10 and Nissan Frontier.
So, any Titano unit sold will reinforce the current power of Fiat’s light commercial lineup.
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