Fiat Sales Fall by Almost Half in May

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 11, 10:52PM EST · Published Jun 2, 8:15AM EDT

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Fiat Sales Fall by Almost Half in May — © courtesy of Fiat USA LLC

Fiat suffered a huge drop in sales in the United States last month, down by 46% to 1,441 vehicles. It is among the last, unfinished pieces of business for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V.’s (NYSE: FCAU) departing CEO, Sergio Marchionne, who has run the company since 2004 and is famous for pulling Chrysler out of the tailspin that put it into bankruptcy.

Fiat sales for the January through May period were down 45% to 6,859. Every one of the cars in the model line had a double-digit drop in sales.

Fiat has suffered from a poor brand image in the United States and usually falls at or near the bottom of widely regarded car research from firms such as J.D. Power, Consumer Reports and the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

Among Fiat Chrysler’s other brands, sales of Jeep soared. Dodge and Chrysler sales plunged, primarily because of the rotation of American demand from cars to light trucks, sport utility vehicles and crossovers.

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Fiat Chrysler’s May results according to management:

FCA US Reports May 2018 Sales
FCA US reports best month of retail sales since July 2005
Jeep brand reports record May of total sales, up 29 percent
Jeep Wrangler reports record May of total sales, up 26 percent
Ram Light Duty retail sales rise 18 percent in May
June 1, 2018 , Auburn Hills, Mich. – FCA US LLC today reported sales of 214,294 vehicles in May 2018, an 11 percent increase compared with sales of 193,040 vehicles in May 2017.

U.S. retail sales for the month rose 10 percent to 167,785, making it the highest month of retail sales since July 2005 when 219,045 vehicles were sold. It was also the best May since 2004. Retail sales accounted for 78 percent of total sales. Fleet sales accounted for 22 percent of total sales, a slight uptick from 21 percent for May 2017.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.