February sales

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FEBRUARY SALES

03/02/2011


New car sales shot up spectacularly in the American market last month. They jumped by more than 27 percent falling just shy of 1 million units. On an annualized basis, known as the SAAR, sales came in at 13.3 million units versus 10.5 million a year ago.

Despite rising gasoline and diesel prices Americans showed they still prefer trucks over cars. Car sales were up nearly 23 percent, while trucks were up nearly 32 percent. Even though sales of small cars were up strong, as we’ll see in a moment, they still lost market share.

Amongst the major manufacturers General Motors and Toyota put in a blistering performance. On a daily-selling rate, which is how Ward’s reports them, GM sales were up by more than 46 percent, Toyota’s were up nearly 42 percent. Hyundai/Kia were up strong, as was Nissan. While Ford and Chrysler did see an increase in sales, they both lost market share.

But be careful as you interpret these results. Bloomberg reports that both GM and Toyota increased their sales incentives by 11 to 12 percent. Honda raised its incentives by nearly 9 percent. Ford and Chrysler actually cut their incentive spending. The lesson in this is that automakers are going to be tempted to increase their incentive spending, which could come back to haunt them.

In the subcompact class the Ford Fiesta shot to the top of the charts and the Hyundai Accent actually outsold the Honda Fit. The Chevy Aveo and Toyota Yaris trailed in the segment.

The Honda Civic led the compact class. And while the Toyota Corolla/Matrix put in a strong performance, the real news here is how strong the Chevrolet Cruze is selling. Every month for the last four months the Cruze has shown spectacular sales gains.

Amongst midsize cars the Toyota Camry proved once again it’s the best selling car in America. And yet the Ford Fusion put in a pretty good performance, outselling the Honda Accord. The Nissan Altima and Chevy Malibu round out the segment.

The crossover segment continues to be one of the fastest growing in the market, and the Honda CR-V performed the best of all. Even so, the Ford Escape showed a lot of strength in the segment, and the Chevrolet Equinox is definitely starting to flex its muscles. Surprisingly, despite Toyota’s strong overall performance, sales of the RAV4 were pretty weak compared to the competitors.

The Ford F-Series continues to be the best-selling full-size pickup, but the Chevy Silverado came closer to it than in any other month in recent memory. The Ram trailed well-behind, but its sales were actually up more than 80 percent compared to a year ago. The Toyota Tundra and Nissan Titan trailed way behind.

There’s a real dogfight going on in the luxury segment. BMW has climbed to the top of the list, and by the way, these sales do not include MINI. Mercedes slid into second place, but the real shocking performance here is Cadillac, which saw sales shoot up by 70 percent. Lexus sales were essentially flat so the brand lost market share. And while Audi is last on the list, its sales were up strongly over a year ago.

So what can we read into these numbers? The market is recovering quickly. So far rising fuel prices don’t seem to have had much of an impact on sales, or what people are buying. While hybrid sales were up more than 41 percent, virtually all of the gain came from one car, the Toyota Prius. Hybrids still account for only 2.4 percent of the total market. If fuel prices continue to rise they could easily skew the numbers. But so far they seem to have had little impact.

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