The company said it sold 20,286 cars in Italy in August, 2.6 percent below its sales figures for the same month last year. That is the closest Fiat-Chrysler came to matching its year-ago sales figures since February, the last month before the national coronavirus lockdown entered into force.
Yet to date, sales were still down 39 percent compared with the first eight months of 2019. Over the same period, Fiat-Chrysler saw its share of the Italian car market erode by 0.8 percent, to 23.5 percent.
The relative strength of August's sales numbers was a dose of positive news for the company, which is in the midst of merging with French rival Peugeot.
The coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic slowdown hit Fiat-Chrysler hard, with sales falling so fast the company was forced to ask for a government-backed loan worth 6.3 billion euros (7.5 billion U.S. dollars) to assure the company had enough liquidity during negotiations with Peugeot. In June, the merger plans were the subject of a European Union antitrust probe, and earlier this week the company said it would recall more than 130,000 vehicles worldwide to fix a problem that caused some diesel engines to stall.
In trading on Milan's Italian Stock Exchange Wednesday, Fiat-Chrysler shares gained as much as 1.2 percent before closing the day at 9.16 euros (10.85 U.S. dollars), up 0.4 percent from Tuesday's close. Wednesday's session was the first that saw Fiat-Chrysler shares rise in the last six trading sessions, and only the fourth time since Aug. 11 the shares did not lose ground.
So far in 2020, Fiat-Chrysler shares have lost more than 40 percent of their value.
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