Big shot of Stellantis in South America. Not content with already being the leader of the car market in a historically strategic area especially for the Fiat brand, the Italian-French group also becomes the first operator in the specific components segment, after having acquired 70% of the Brazilian group last week Commercial Automotive, owner among others of D-Paschoal, a leading company specializing in car services and spare parts. The operation will therefore make Stellantis, which in 2023 with the same aim had acquired the Argentinean Norauto, the leader of Latin American auto components, an area in which this business is worth around 20 billion euros, of which only a dozen in Brazil, the reference market for Fiat and Stellantis. Suffice it to say that after decades of rooting, Fiat is still the leading brand for car sales in the Portuguese-speaking country with a share of 22% (32% counting the entire Stellantis universe): in Brazil in 2022 it sold 430 thousand cars out of a total of 1,2 million worldwide, i.e. more than those sold on the entire European market and more than double compared to the Italian market.
Stellantis-Comercial Automotiva: acquisition that redefines mobility
Comercial Automotiva is a giant with 120 single-brand stores and 28 distribution centers for spare parts and tires throughout Brazil, where it has almost 3.000 employees and closed 2023 with a turnover of 2,6 billion reais, equal to over half a million euros. “We want to increasingly be a mobility tech company, that is, a company capable of responding to all the mobility and service needs of our customers – he commented Emanuele Cappellano, who replaced Antonio Filosa as president of Stellantis South America at the end of 2023 -. With this acquisition we become the first distributor of auto components in South America, in line with our Dare Forward 2030 plan." “Thanks to this operation – he added Paulo Solti, vice president of the Parts & Services division of Stellantis in South America -, we will be able to assist customers of any car brand." The Comercial Automotiva group, in addition to D-Paschoal, includes DPK, KDP, AutoZ, Maxxi Trainning, Kmaxx, Recmaxx, Autocred and Maxxipel.
New investments and projects for sustainable mobility
The operation confirms the centrality of Latin America and especially Brazil for Stellantis, also with regards to development projects of sustainable mobility of the next few years. A few months ago the Italian-French group, still under the direction of Antonio Filosa, announced an investment of half a billion euros between now and 2025 to relaunch the production center of Porto Real, in the State of Rio de Janeiro, which will be modernized to enable new flexible and sustainable production technologies. But above all, again in 2023, Stellantis launched the great project Bio-Hybrid, that is, three production platforms for ethanol flex-fuel hybrid vehicles and one for a 100% electric car. Starting from this year, the Bio-Hybrid models will thus become the core business of the factories of the automotive hub of the Italian-French group in Betim, in the State of Minas Gerais: they will in fact represent 60% of Brazilian production by 2030, with a view to of a revolution in the automotive market, in compliance with the objectives of the energy transition.
