US car registrations in the fourth quarter are down 16% year-on-year, less than expected. Equita underlines that the US market (>40% of the turnover of the STLA group in FY21) saw registrations grow by 9% to 3.57 million.
Stellantis underperformed in the fourth quarter, recording a drop of 16% to 348,000 units. The press release indicates production limitations due to lack of components which negatively affected sales, the same reason that we believe penalized year-end sales in Europe as well. The figure is lower than expected and highlights an impoverishment of the mix given that sales to fleets (typically less profitable than those to retail) grew by 48% annually in the fourth quarter. “For this reason – continue from Equita – we marginally limit the FY22 estimates without impact on the valuation based on cautious assumptions on the trend in FY23 (down YoY)”.