Fiat-Chrysler increased global sales by 12.7% in January

TURIN -- Fiat-Chrysler's global sales increased by 12.7 percent in January compared with the same month last year, helped by strong sales of the Fiat brand in Brazil and Chrysler vehicles in North America.

Fiat-Chrysler sales grew to 329,800 units, Fiat said in a report released on its investor relation Web site on Feb. 20.

Latin America passed Europe to become the automaker's second-largest region by unit sales. Latin America volume increased by 27.6 percent to 88,800 units. Fiat did not break down the numbers among its brands but most sales in the region are Fiat-badged vehicles. Many of the sales were in Brazil, where Fiat-Chrysler's volume rose 35.8 percent to 71,200 units last month.

North America remained Fiat-Chrysler's largest market, with sales up 14.3 percent to 142,300 sales in January. Of those, 139,800 were Chrysler sales and 2,500 Fiat vehicles. U.S. sales grew 16.4 percent to 117,700; Canada was up 2.6 percent to 17,000; and Mexico grew 11.7 percent to 7,500.

The EMEA region, which includes Europe, Middle East and Africa, contracted by 7.9 percent to 84,500 units.

Fiat-Chrysler's fastest growing region remains Asia-Pacific (APAC). Here, monthly sales grew by 83.8 percent to 13,300.

Last year, Fiat-Chrysler's global sales increased by 6 percent to 4.2 million. The automaker forecasts that its volume will increase to between 4.3 million and 4.5 million units this year.

In a Jan. 30 presentation to analysts, Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne said the company expects about 2.2 million sales in the NAFTA region this year, up from 2.11 million last year. Latin America and EMEA will remain stable at about 1 million units each, while the APAC region is expected double sales to 200,000, Marchionne said.