Under the late Sergio Marchionne, Alfa Romeo pinned its hopes on two stylish, sporty midsize models on the Giorgio platform: The Stelvio crossover and the Giulia sedan. But the two vehicles failed to challenge Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz in the premium segments, and a seven-model lineup plan released in June 2018 under Marchionne has been scaled back to just four.
Marchionne's plan called for annual sales of 400,000 by 2022; sales in 2019 were well below 100,000, as the Stelvio and Giulia sputtered in the U.S. market.
Maserati, another brand with a storied racing and production car heritage, has struggled to meet sales targets that proved wildly optimistic. FCA’s 2014-18 business plan forecast sales would rise to 75,000 annually. Instead, they peaked at 48,700 before slipping to 35,000 in 2018. Sales in 2019 were around 19,300, a 46 percent decline. They fell a further 48 percent to 7,000 in the first half of 2020.
Losses have followed. Profit margins were negative in 2019 (minus 12 percent) and in the first half of 2020 (minus 40 percent), after a 13.8 percent operating margin in 2017 and 5.7 percent in 2018.
In 2019, FCA CEO Mike Manley said Maserati was expected to continue to lose money until a wave of new and revised product launches in the next three years took effect. That plan has since been clarified: Maserati will invest more than 2.5 billion euros ($2.96 billion) to launch a total of 13 new models and derivatives by 2025, with a goal of raising sales to 75,000 a year; Manley said in September that 2020 will be the last year that Maserati loses money.