By Steve Rothwell and Bill Koenig

Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co., the second-biggest U.S. automaker, boosted its share of European sales in November after introducing a new version of the Fiesta small car.

The increase by 0.5 percentage point to 8.8 percent came as deliveries in the company's top 19 European countries tumbled 21 percent to 95,700 vehicles. The new Fiesta was the company's second-biggest seller last month, with 18,100 deliveries, Ford said today in a statement. The Focus was first, with 22,300.

"We are proud that in such a difficult economic environment we could further increase our market share," Ingvar Sviggum, vice president of Cologne, Germany-based Ford of Europe, said in the statement.

The new Fiesta is the first in a line of vehicles that Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally plans to sell worldwide. The Fiesta will be introduced in China in 2009 and the U.S. in 2010. Mulally is boosting small-car output as he tries to reduce Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford's reliance on large pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles.

Ford is hailing the Fiesta after saying last month that it would cut European production by about 10 percent as the credit crunch and the global recession sap demand for new cars.

The company began making the model this year in Cologne for European markets. Those cars are now also on sale in South Africa and are slated for introduction in Australia and New Zealand.

Ford adds Fiesta output in early 2009 in Valencia, Spain, and Nanjing, China. The company is retooling a truck plant in Cuautitlan, Mexico, to build the small cars for the U.S. and other North American markets.

Ford rose 14 cents, or 4.6 percent, to $3.18 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have fallen 53 percent this year.