After Ghosn’s February announcement of 26 new models for the Renault Group by the year 2009, it was the turn of Fiat’s Marchionne to announce a figure of 23 by 2010. The first executive has promised an additional 800,000 vehicles - the latter plans for the three Fiat makes’ annual sales to reach 3.5 million units by 2010, vs. 2.12 million this year.

Announcements of this kind may seem anomalous when considered against the backdrop of a 2006 European market that despite improving in October was very hard going for generalist carmakers. The relative improvement in Fiat’s situation, driven for the moment by Panda and Grande Punto sales alone, largely translates the company’s poor performance in previous years. As for Renault, from a European perspective the company’s three year plan triennal was clearly ineffective in 2006, in both volume and new model launch terms.

Moreover, recent statements indicate that no real improvement is to be expected by 1Q 2007. At a European level, we have good cause to doubt whether current predictions are realistic, and to attribute their extreme ambitiousness to the fact that companies need to find reasons to convince shareholders to hold on to their stock and/or to buy more.

Yet we also need to adjust this European perspective to incorporate the starkly contrasting picture in other parts of the world.

For example, ex-European sales rise from 27 to 37% in Renault’s 2009 plan. Predictions are that most of these extra 800,000 units will be sold in emerging markets by Dacia, Samsung and accessorily Renault. This is a more credible claim, given the 10.5% rise in 1Q ex-European sales vs. the 7.6% drop in Europe itself.

Also, in terms of products, the 2006 Automobile World Fair was noteworthy because the two new models displayed by Group Renault were the Dacia MCV and Kaleos, designed by Samsung on a Nissan platform. In the same vein, P. Pelata, the Group’s number 2, announced in October that Samsung’s future SM5 will probably be imported and sold under the Renault name in Europe. Lastly, in terms of investments, Renault has recently announced the creation of a new Romanian engineering centre; new capital spending in Brazil; further investment in Russia; and above all, an increase in production capacities at the plant it shares with Mahindra, rising within 5 years from 50,000 units initially to 400,000 units.

On the face of things, Fiat would appear to be in a different situation given its strong 2006 sales in Europe and its declared aim of a double digit market share in this part of the world. Taking a closer look, however, we see that restored profitability, currently the main achievement of the Marchionne management regime, is less a product of European results and more the reflection of Fiat’s performance in Brazil, where it became market leader in 1Q 2006. Note also Fiat’s announcement that its Nanjing Auto alliance is close to breaking even and will start to turn a profit in 2007.

Lastly, like Renault, investments and future volumes seem to be driven by non-European activities, specifically in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) that the Anglo-American press has been been making such a fuss about. In China, Fiat hopes to go from unit sales of 40,000 to 300,000. It also signed an agreement with Tata in India last summer.

Trends of this nature seem to portend a new “outreach” wave by some of Europe’s large automobile groups, who have been hiring specialist industry researchers to try and apprehend the nature, forms and consequences of this shift for the development of the sector as a whole and for the future of automobile markets across the different regions of the world.

As an international network, GERPISA clearly has a key role to play in analysing this ongoing dynamic. Being a multi-disciplinary social sciences network, there is no question but that GERPISA possesses scientific resources it can mobilise to invent the concepts and methods that will elucidate these phenomena. It is up to us to ensure that GERPISA effectively mobilises its potential.