Nearly all the provinces in Canada recorded new light vehicle sales increases in September — with the exception of Ontario, according to DesRosiers Automotive Consultants (DAC).
September is noteworthy for these increases for two reasons: sales increases/decreases have varied across the provinces, and overall, sales rose above 2019 results after a period of prolonged decreases. DAC estimates that total sales reached 169,876 units sold for the month, up 2.4 per cent year-over-year.
“September was a definite good news story for the auto market in Canada” said Andrew King, Managing Partner of DAC. “Despite the slight weakness seen in Ontario, the market performance for the month was of a different order completely from the dark days of April and May.”
Prince Edward Island, which is considered volatile due to low volume, managed the largest sales increase for September at 17.9 per cent. New Brunswick was not far off with a sales boost of 14.4 per cent during the same period. And Quebec, the second largest province by new vehicle sales volume, was up 11.6 per cent. It helped add nearly 450,000 units to the national sales total.
Ontario, although still the volume leader among the provinces, experienced a sales decrease of 4.1 per cent — a deficit of nearly 3,000 units.
“Year-to-date sales remained well below 2019 results across Canada with the precipitous declines of the second quarter dominating year-to-date performance,” said DAC.
