Fiat sees sales goal key to profitable Alfa Romeo

By Gilles Castonguay

MILAN, June 19 (Reuters) - Alfa Romeo will become profitable when it manages to sell at least 300,000 cars a year, the owner of the struggling sports car maker, Fiat (FIA.MI), said on Thursday.

Fiat does not publish the results of each of its brands but the Italian industrial group has acknowledged in the past that Alfa has been losing money.

Fiat Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne has described Alfa as one of the group's brands with the biggest problems in turning itself around.

Suffering from a reputation of poor quality and service, it has been forced to leave German rivals BMW (BMWG.DE) and Audi (VOWG.DE) to set the standard for premium sports cars.

As part of his restructuring plan for Fiat, Marchionne has set a 2010 annual sales target of 300,000 for each of the group's three brands, which also include Fiat and Lancia.

Alfa is further away from that target than the other two. For 2008, it aims to make and sell 150,000 units even though sales in the key western European market fell 36 percent in the first five months of the year to 42,486 cars, according to its chief executive, Luca De Meo.

By comparison, Lancia, which is far less known outside Italy than Alfa, sold 53,868 cars during the same period.

Speaking to Reuters after the presentation of a new car for the brand, De Meo blamed the low number on a strike by Alfa workers earlier this year. "We had to stop the system for two months and a half," he said.