Canadian light vehicle sales for March 2024 are in and appear to be both “hot” and “cold,” according to DesRosiers Automotive Consultants (DAC).
They described the 9.2% market gain from last month as “anticlimactic,” as it followed February’s 24.4% gain — the strongest February increase in Canadian light vehicle sales of all time. DAC said the market total of 159,000 units lags far behind March totals (upwards of 180,000) seen pre-pandemic.
“For the time being, pent-up demand continued to carry the new light vehicle market as vehicle availability approached normalization — although there are increasing warning signs starting to appear in the market that are raising our level of concern,” said Andrew King, Managing Partner at DAC, in a statement.
DAC described the SAAR of 1.74 million units as disappointing and “the lowest seen over the past six months.” The firm plans to provide more analysis in the days ahead.
As for the first quarter of 2024, Canada’s new light vehicle market experienced a sales increase of 15.3% (401,000 units) from the first quarter of 2023 (348,000 units). Some noteworthy performance highlights include Subaru having the highest increase in percentage terms for Q1 thanks to an increase of 85.8% over Q1 2023; Honda up 70.3% in sales, and General Motors leading the market in terms of volume after selling more than 63,000 units for the quarter.
