What FCA Needs to Increase Sales: More SUVs and Trucks

It was quite a hit-or-miss move when Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) decided to kill its small mainstream cars for the sake of making more SUVs and pickup trucks, almost as surprising as the transformation of Conner Plant into museum. But as time goes by, it has apparently turned out to be the right move that FCA wouldn’t regret. At least, it’s the case for now.

The Italian-American auto giant said that its sales in the US has recently gone up. It saw an increase by 14% with the Jeep unsurprisingly being the top seller. This increase has broken the company’s 18-month sales decline dating back to August 2016.

The production of more big cars seems to have met more demand of retail buyers, which contributed to the increase of FCA’s retail sales by 11%. This also enabled the automaker to overtake Ford Motor Company in that sales category. Ford itself scored a 3.4% increase in US sales in March, while its competitor General Motors got a much higher 15,7% rise.

The 11% increase is clearly striking for FCA when compared to its 0.8% tiny growth of sales posted in March last year. And it was undoubtedly the Jeep Wrangler that became the FCA’s sales leader last month. With the 2018 all-new version, the SUV managed to record its best sales figures ever, that is 27.829 units or 70% more than last year. Under the Wrangler, there’s the redesigned Cherokee which managed to sell 23,764 units or up 63%. Overall, the Jeep brand recorded a sales increase of 45% with 98,382 vehicles sold.

Ranked third after the two Jeeps is the Chrysler Pacifica minivan with a 40% sales rise to 13,086 units sold, which is followed by the classic-looking Dodge Challenger muscle car which sold 8,150 units or increased by 31%. Meanwhile, Alfa Romeo is ranked last with 2,576 vehicles sold, mainly the Giulia sedans and the new Stelvio SUVs.