Fiat's Chrysler Says Global Vehicle Sales Rose 12 Percent In February

Chrysler Group LLC, the U.S. automaker run by Fiat SpA, said its global sales in February rose 12 percent from a year earlier with the rate of growth outside North America quickening from January.

Deliveries climbed to 128,321 vehicles last month, Auburn Hills, Michigan-based Chrysler said in an e-mail. Global sales this year through February rose 14 percent to 229,787, below the 32 percent growth rate that Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne has targeted for this year, reported Bloomberg.

Chrysler’s new vehicles and refreshed models haven’t had a chance yet to fuel new sales growth, Dennis Virag, president of Automotive Consulting Group in Ann Arbor, Michigan, said today in a telephone interview. He said he’s skeptical that the current lineup will be able to meet Chrysler’s sales goals.

“On the product side, they still need quite a bit of work,” he said. While Chrysler doesn’t have a product portfolio likely to drive “significant” gains, “they’ve done a good job in basically refining the products they already had in the market.”

Sales outside of the U.S., Canada and Mexico rose 8.6 percent to 11,305 compared with a year ago, said Ralph Kisiel, a Chrysler spokesman. Non-North American sales in January rose by 1.3 percent.

Sales from the Asia-Pacific region rose 51 percent to 3,648 in February, and deliveries in Western and Central Europe fell 33 percent to 2,083, Kisiel said yesterday.

Latin America sales rose 12 percent to 3,355 in February and deliveries in Chrysler’s sales region that includes Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Russia rose 17 percent to 2,210, he said.

The company previously reported U.S. sales rose 13 percent to 95,102 in February.

Chrysler’s second-largest sales market is Canada, where sales climbed 8.5 percent to 15,238 in February. Mexico sales last month rose to 6,676 from 6,013, the company said.

Marchionne, who is also CEO of Fiat, has said Chrysler will sell 2 million vehicles this year, 32 percent more than the 1.52 million the automaker sold in 2010. The automaker is trying to boost international sales and become profitable as it prepares for an initial public offering in the second half of the year.