The fat lady hasn’t sung yet but she’s warming up in the wings, getting ready to celebrate a third consecutive year of record sales for new vehicles in Canada.
Another monthly record in November with sales of 145,426 vehicles, up 4.7 per cent from the record set last year, has effectively sealed the deal.
Barring some major catastrophe in December, 2015 will be the best-selling year ever – by a big margin.
Year-to-date sales of 1,769,611 vehicles are 2.9 per cent and almost 50,000 vehicles ahead of the same point last year.
“If December sales match last year’s total of 131K units then the market will have exceeded 1.9 million units for the first time ever,” said industry analyst Dennis DesRosiers. “This is a very high probability forecast,” he added.
“Consumer confidence rose significantly in November, building on a nice increase in October,” said David Adams, president of Global Automakers of Canada.
Confirming the strength of the market the seasonally adjusted annualized sales rate (SAAR) for November was 1.96 million, according to DesRosiers Automotive Consultants – the highest ever for the month. And year-over-year sales have increased for 32 consecutive months.
General Motors on top again
With sales up 13.2 per cent for the month, General Motors repeated its October placing at the top of the sales charts, followed by FCA (+0.6 per cent) and Ford (+3.1 per cent), although the three were tightly bunched.
Year-to-date, FCA (+1.0 per cent) remains on top with what is probably now an unassailable lead of more than 12,000 units ahead of Ford (-3.9 per cent), which has held that position for the past five years. General Motors (+6.2 per cent), while still in third place, has made the greatest improvement of the three, regaining 0.4 per cent of market share.
Behind those three, the rankings followed the familiar order of Toyota (+ 3.4 per cent), Honda (+2.3 per cent), Hyundai (+4.4 per cent) and Nissan through seventh place. Mazda (+3.5 per cent), Kia (+3.2 per cent) and Volkswagen completed the top 10 for the month, although VW (-5.5 per cent) remains ahead of Kia year-to-date.
Trucks continue to rule
Trucks (including CUVs and SUVs) continued their dominant role in November’s results, with sales up 12.3 per cent, while passenger car sales fell by 7.0 per cent. Trucks claimed 65.1 per cent of the market for the month, compared to 38.2 per cent for cars. Year-to-date, trucks now hold a 61.8 per cent share.
The biggest gainers for the month were luxury or near-luxury brands: Volvo (+38.3 per cent); Land Rover (+71.9 per cent), Porsche (+36.5 per cent), Lexus (+29.4 per cent) and BMW (+19.2 per cent).
The few losers for the month were Smart (-85.4 per cent), Jaguar (-12.4 per cent), Volkswagen (-5.5 per cent), Acura (-4.0 per cent) and Mercedes-Benz (-1.4 per cent).
[NOTE: Data quoted in this report were sourced from DesRosiers Automotive Consultants, Global Automakers of Canada and individual automakers.]
