Auto sales in Canada carried their positive momentum into the new year, making January the 10th consecutive month of year-over-year growth. Sales of 99,051 new vehicles, up 3.4% from last year, were the highest they’ve been for the month since 2008.
Just as it did last year, Chrysler topped the sales charts, up (+2.0% relative to January 2014), well ahead of calendar-year 2014 sales leader Ford (+0.4%) and General Motors (+5.3%), which trailed Ford by a similar amount. GM, however, was the only one of the Detroit three to outpace the industry average, grabbing a couple-tenths of share from its cross-town rivals in the process.
Toyota (+7.6%) claimed its usual fourth place in the rankings but Hyundai (+2.4%) slipped past Honda (-3.9%) for fifth. The latter’s falter let Nissan (+15.0%) – the biggest gainer of the mainstream brands – close to within 100 units of catching Honda for sixth.
“A relatively mild winter along with sustained lower fuel prices have been contributing factors to the sales growth,” said David Adams, president of the Global Automakers of Canada.
Lower gasoline prices probably contributed to a continued increase in truck sales, as well. Up by 8.4% from a year ago, they claimed 64.5% of the market, compared with 61.6% last January. Passenger car sales for the period fell by 4.2%.
Industry analyst Dennis DesRosiers cautioned against reading too much into the January figures, however. It’s typically the poorest month of the year for sales and its results are often influenced by a certain “flexibility” in the numbers reported at the end of the previous year, he said.
With automakers fighting for supremacy in various segments of the market, it’s not uncommon to bring sales forward or otherwise “finesse” year-end performance, he explained, and those practices may distort the sales results for January. There was a lot of volatility apparent in January’s figures with significant variations in performance among brands, he observed.
It should also be noted that the seasonally adjusted annual sales rate (SAAR) for January (1.73-million) was the lowest it has been since last May. And, it’s the third consecutive month that it has declined.
One month does not a year make and there’s a long way left to go in 2015. While these early sales gains are a positive indicator, “we are most definitely in a period of high uncertainty,” according to DesRosiers. So, while hopes are high, a third consecutive year of record sales is far from a sure thing.
