Despite the natural and other disasters in Japan, US light vehicle sales continued to show improvement. According to Ward’s, sales topped 1.15m for the month, producing a seasonally adjusted annualised rate (SAAR) of 13.17m, up 1.91m from April 2010 and nearly 60,000 from March 2011. That makes three months running the SAAR has been above 13m.
The good news was shared by most automakers. Exceptions were Toyota, down 2.4%, adjusted for daily sales rate (DSR) and Daimler, pulled down 0.1% by its Smart brand.
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There were some major gains in April: Kia sales soared 50.9% and Hyundai improved by 35.1%, both setting new monthly sales records, while General Motors finished the month 21.9% and 1.4 points of market share ahead of April 2010.
Among the smaller brands, Mitsubishi celebrated a 97.9% jump and Saab, money troubles notwithstanding, climbed 211.7%. Thanks to a 384% explosion in Cayenne sales volume, Porsche finished the month a healthy 74.8% ahead of last April. Subaru sales rose 2.8%, enough to notch yet another monthly record and Audi broke the 10,000 mark, setting a new record of its own.
The Detroit automakers picked up another 1.5% of the total market. Again, the big loser was Toyota, which saw its piece of the pie trimmed to 13.8%.
Chrysler was up 17.7%, thought it is having trouble with some of its new products. In a Monday conference call, CEO Sergio Marchionne said only about 40 of 150 new Fiat dealerships are open and supplies of the new Chrysler 200 and 300 models are not where they should be at this point in the rollout.
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By GlobalDataPetrol prices roughly equivalent to GBP0.64/litre have produced a shift to smaller automobiles. The small and mid-size car segments grew by 32.9% and 19.6%, respectively. Chevrolet’s new Cruze blazed its way to fourth among passenger cars, outselling all other American-badged cars in April.
Even at US$4/gallon, Americans aren’t ready to give up their SUVs; the mid-size SUV market was up a robust 61.6 %, thanks to strong sales of the Ford Explorer and Jeep Grand Cherokee.
General Motors reported the best total sales numbers, but Ford remains the favourite US brand. Chevrolet is the runner-up and Toyota remains third.
Chrysler padded its lead over Nissan for fifth place, behind GM, Ford, Toyota and Honda. Volkswagen was the top European marque, reporting its best sales since November 2003. BMW leads the premium brands, both for the month and, by a razor-thin 29 sales over Mercedes, for the year.
Much has been made of the fallout of the ongoing crisis in Japan and its effect on the US light vehicle market. There’s no doubt sales of Japanese vehicles are going to decline in coming months. However, the opportunity for the Detroit automakers to increase in their share of the overall market is going to depend on many consumers’ willingness to consider American brand vehicles. The major beneficiaries could well be the Korean brands that have some very strong new models that are doing well.
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