Top import brands took a larger slice of Canada’s new vehicle market in May as overall sales dipped 0.5% amid a sharp retreat by General Motors, according to company figures released on Tuesday.
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Canadian sales slipped to 184,500 vehicles last month following a 3.7% rise in April, though both Toyota and Honda posted record monthly sales, with Toyota Canada moving into the second sales slot behind GM, Reuters reported.
Despite the overall slide, double-digit gains in January and February have kept sales up 4.3% so far this year as the woes of the US auto market have not spilled into Canada, Reuters said, [echoing remarks made recently about the cross-border neighbour by veteran US auto writer Jerry Flint, writing in Forbes magazine].
“I honestly sit back each month and hold my breath in anticipation of this bubble bursting, but alas there is still no sign of Canada letting up,” Dennis DesRosiers, president of DesRosiers Automotive Consulting, wrote in a recent note cited by the news agency.
“Rarely does Canada go counter-cyclical to the US market for any length of time and it has now been a couple [of] years,” DesRosiers said.
Sales by GM Canada, the country’s biggest automaker, whose Oshawa truck plant was this week slated to close in 2009, fell 20% to 36,277 vehicles in May from 45,359 in the same month last year. GM’s car sales fell 5.8% while sales of light trucks – which include SUVs and minivans – plunged 32.9%, Reuters said.
The news agency noted the GM closure announcement came just weeks after the automaker had said Oshawa would start producing hybrid versions of two of its pick-up trucks.
Ford of Canada reported it sold 23,615 vehicles in May, down 6.4% from 25,218 a year earlier. Car sales rose 1.2% last month while truck sales fell 9.3%.
“Until these companies can stop their market share erosion in Canada, and indeed the US and Mexico, they will have to continue to downsize their operations like GM did in their announcement this morning,” DesRosiers said on Tuesday.
The report noted that Chrysler Canada bucked the trend set by its ‘Big Three’ Detroit peers with total sales up 7% to 27,325 vehicles in May, the automaker’s 22nd straight month of gains.
Toyota said it set a sales record for the second straight month as it sold 28,489 units, up 15.2% year on year.
Toyota brand sales rose 15.5% to 26,664 units while Lexus climbed 11.7% to 1,825 vehicles.
Honda Canada May sales also hit a monthly record as it sold 18,892 units, up 4%.
According to Reuters, the automaker said Honda brand sales increased 3% to 16,896 units while Acura volume was up 13% to 1,996 units.
