General Motors Corporation’s retail share of the new vehicle industry was 30.3% for the first 12 days of June – up almost 8% from its retail share in May according to the Power Information Network (PIN).
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PIN said that GM’s market share was up 9% from April 2005 and 7% from June a year ago.
The last time GM’s single-month retail market share exceeded 30% for a full month was September 2004, when the company sold 31.5% of all new vehicles.
During the first 12 days of June, the Chrysler Group’s retail market share dropped more than 2% points from May, while both Ford and Toyota shares dropped by more 1%. Other manufacturers, including American Honda, Nissan Motor and Hyundai Motors, have experienced smaller declines in market share.
Tom Libby, senior director of industry analysis at the Power Information Network, said: “The ‘GM Employee Discount for Everyone’ incentive programme is substantially moving the needle for them. At this point it looks like this may be their most effective incentive programme, in terms of market share gain, since the post-9/11 zero-percent financing programme.”
Jeff Schuster, executive director of global forecasting at J.D. Power-LMC Automotive Forecasting, believes GM’s incentive plan could help it keep its market share near last year’s level.
“This incentive program will function more as a share stabiliser for GM when looking at the impact on calendar year 2005 market share,” Schuster said. “We had expected GM to end 2005 at 26% of the light-vehicle market, but could see a number closer to the 27.6% share GM had for 2004 if this campaign is used on an intermittent basis. However, over the long run, it will still be the product that makes the difference, not incentives.”
PIN said that in both May and June, more than 60% of the vehicles traded in on GM purchases have been GM vehicles. There has also been a mild increase in the number of Ford vehicles being traded in for new GM models.
