Light vehicle sales in the United States last month rose 10.3% year on year to 1,212,849. Year to date sales were off 3% to 13,883,112.
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According to WardsAuto.com data, car sales, adjusted for the number of selling days in the month, were up 1% to 546,489 in October while light trucks, including SUVS, bounced back 19.4% to 666,360 as fuel prices fell. YTD, cars were up 1.4% to 6,596,391 while trucks were off 6.6% to 7,286,721, reflecting recent months when high fuel prices, temporarily it seems, suppressed demand.
Sales of domestic cars were off 1.5% to 376,073 units while import models posted a 7% rise to 170,416.
Domestic light truck sales were up 16.7% to 555,317 (YTD 6,179,074; -9.0%) and the import brands posted a 34.6% rise to 113,043 (YTD 1,107, 647; +9.3%).
Detroit’s ‘Big Three’ posted mixed fortunes – GM (up 22% to 297,555) and Ford (+12.3% to 210,249) reported healthy rises trailed by inventory-swollen Chrysler whose sales reflected that, off 0.7% to 159,586. The Big 3 reported combined sales of 667,390, up 13.2%.
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By GlobalDataAmongst the Asian imports, collectively up 7.7% to 475,666, Toyota boosted October sales 13.6% to 189,011, Nissan was up 8.1% to 75,115, Hyundai up 7.8% to 30,479 and Honda 3.7% to 110,624.
Amongst the European brands, Mercedes 16.5% gain to 20,601 was notable.
Year to date, Chrysler sales of 1,787,534 were off 8.6%, Ford was off 7.7% to 2,446,359 and GM off 9.4% to 3,438,995. Overall, Detroit’s sales were down 8.6% to 7,672,888.
Amongst the Asian brands, Suzuki, reflecting some new model launches this year, is up 25.2% to 87,278 and Toyota was up 12.2% to 2,117,507. Overall, the Asian brands were up 4.9% to 5,462,346 YTD.
Mercedes led the European brands, up 12.8% to 197,689 YTD. European brands were up 6.9% to 747,878 YTD.
Independent and industry analysts noted that last month’s results looked even better because October 2005 was a slow month, after an incentive-fuelled summer selling season. Heavy incentives and reduced fuel prices last month gave trucks and SUVs a boost.
GM’s chief of global market and industry analysis, Paul Ballew, told the Associated Press that the decline in petrol prices from a peak of $US3 a gallon earlier this year helped the industry as a whole and truck sales in particular.
“What we’re seeing right now is not a movement back into (SUVs), but at $2.20 a gallon, some of the pressure which was really dampening demand … has been lessened. We are not seeing the mass migration out of (SUVs) into cars or crossovers that we saw in the spring,” he was quoted as saying.
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