Fiat Chrysler Shares Surge 17% in 2015

Fiat Chrysler does not have the advantage of size in the American market. Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM), Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) and General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) all outsell it. However, Chrysler continues to post double-digit sales increases most months. January was no exception. Sales of its light trucks and cars rose 14% to 145,007. The industry as a whole was up 13.7% to 1,151,123. That may be the closest industry growth has been to Chrysler’s in any month for over a year.

Fiat Chrysler’s growth has come despite the fact that its cars usually perform poorly in customer quality evaluations. The most well-known of these studies are the ones done by J.D. Power. Three of Fiat Chrysler’s four primary brands do very poorly. Among the major brands evaluated. Fiat and Jeep are the bottom in the J.D. Power 2014 Initial Quality Study, and Dodge is below the industry average. Fiat Chrysler brands do not do any better in the J.D. Power 2014 Vehicle Dependability Study.

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A close look at the Fiat Chrysler 2015 brand performance shows that its U.S. sales are actually carried by very few models, as has been the case for most of 2014. The sales of the Fiat and Chrysler name plates are unimpressive. Fiat only sold 3,222 units last month. Chrysler’s sales rose only 2% to 21,113. Sales of the flagship 300 series fell apart, down 41% to 3,145. Dodge brand sales fell 19% to 34,095. Among its models only Dodge’s minivan, the Caravan, sold well, up 47% to 7,290.

The success of Jeep and Ram name plates more than eclipsed the weakness of the poor-performing brands. Some of this was due to the overall popularity of sport utility vehicles and pickups. But, even in those categories Chrysler’s brands outperformed. Jeep sales rose 38% to 41,910. Almost all of that was due to the new Cherokee, which was not available in 2014. Its sales last month were 10,505. In the pickup market, the core of all U.S. car sales, Chrysler’s Ram sits third behind the perennial leader the Ford F-series and number two Chevy Silverado. But Ram sales are rising more quickly than those of the other two and were up 24% to 26,033. Ram sales improvement also bested its two competitors in 2014.

The final marker of how impressive the Fiat Chrysler story has been this year is that while its shares are up 17%, those of GM and Ford have only matched the S&P, which is barely more than flat.

Who would have thought that the weakest of the Big Three, not long removed from Chapter 11, could have married Fiat and done so well?

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