Sales flat through first two months
While the new-vehicle market in the U.S. may not be booming, it is at least recovering strongly. Canadian sales for the first two months of the year, however, have been relatively flat.
Year-to-date, through February, they’re down 0.7 percent from the parallel period in 2010 and they are 2.4 percent behind the average for the past five years. While those numbers aren’t calamitous, neither do they suggest a vibrant recovery.
January sales were up only modestly (+3.6%), year-over year, and February’s fell by 4.2 percent. (Complete monthly sales figure can be found on our website, www.canadianautodealer.ca.)
“We’ve been talking about a halting recovery for quite some time,” says Dennis DesRosiers, president of DesRosiers Automotive Consultants. “Quite frankly, we don’t know whether this is the beginning of some lean months or not but February does clearly demonstrate how fragile the automotive recovery is in Canada.”
Both DesRosiers and Scotiabank senior economist, Carlos Gomes, have forecast the market to be up slightly this year. “But,” DesRosiers clarifies, “we’ve said all along that it wouldn’t surprise us if the market were down slightly.” He notes, however that February is one of the smallest sales months on the year. “So nobody should read a lot into the February numbers.”
The situation looks a little better when viewed in terms of SAAR (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate). While January’s SAAR was in the 1.46-1.48 million range, Gomes calculates February’s at 1.56 million and Desrosiers at 1.58 million. That’s up between 60,000 and 100,000 annualized units from January, and back in line with pre-December figures, as well as 2010’s total of 1.557 million.
The question now is, where do we go from here? With the prospect of gasoline prices rising and incentives inevitably being reduced, both of which could negatively affect the market, it is a big question indeed.
Ford regains sales lead
While Ford won the overall sales race in 2010, General Motors regained some form by year-end, outselling the Blue Oval in the last two months of the year, as well as in January. But, in spite of falling behind last year’s sales in February (-10.3%), Ford regained the top spot, both for the month and year-to-date, as GM’s sales dropped even more (-11.2%), in the process advancing Chrysler (+8.5%) to second place.
There’s interest further down the field, as well, with Hyundai (+2.3%) surpassing Toyota (-26.7%) to claim fourth place for the month, though not the year. The Korean brand is well clear of Honda, in fifth place, year-to-date. Mercedes-Benz (+4.4% in February) maintains its luxury car lead for the year so far, but BMW rebounded strongly (+27.0%) to close the gap from January.
Year-to-date, compared to last year, Porsche has made the greatest gain (+43.5%), followed by Audi (34.0%). Among the mainstream brands, Kia (+27.7%) leads the way, followed by Volkswagen (+18.7%).
Compared to their average sales over the last five years, Audi (+103.3% YTD), and Kia (+71.9%) are the hottest brands. Behind them come Hyundai (+47.4%), Mercedes-Benz (+47.3%), Volkswagen (+43.4%), Porsche (+41.6%) and Subaru (+40.9%).
Three-month trends
Month-to-month sales, of some brands in particular, have become highly volatile – Honda being a case in point. Looking at the combined results for the past three months helps to sublimate some of that volatility, although the general trends seem to shake out the same. (See accompanying graph.)
Overall sales have remained essentially flat (-0.3%) over that period. Porsche was the biggest gainer (+46.5%), followed by Kia (+23.5%), Audi (+23.2%), Mercedes-Benz (+23.0%), BMW (+22.3%) and Volkswagen (+17.7%).
On the other side of the ledger, Smart (-30.7%) showed the greatest decline, followed by Toyota (-29.3%), Suzuki (-27.4%), Lexus (-22.1%) and Volvo (-11.5%).
Sales results and analyses for March will be published in our weekly e-Newsletter and on our website, www.canadianautodealer.ca, in early April. If you’re not getting our e-Newsletter, you can subscribe for free from the website. Just click on the ‘Subscribe’ tab.
