Best August on record for new car sales in Canada

Building on strong sales over the year’s first seven months, Canadian consumers drove the light vehicle market to its best August result ever, surpassing the previous peak of 158,394 units reached in August 2007. According to DesRosiers Automotive Consultants, sales of light vehicles rose 6.5 percent last month, increasing from 149,301 units in August 2012 to 159,004 units in 2013.

With historically strong sales of its light truck products, Ford achieved the month’s highest sales total with 27,257 units sold, an increase of 7.1 percent over the same month in 2012. Following at some distance were Chrysler (+6.6% @ 21,802 units) and General Motors (+0.1% @ 21,091 units), the former showing a half point of year-to-date market share improvement. Despite the recent introduction of an updated large pickup platform, General Motors has not participated in that segment’s sales rally to the same degree as its direct competitors. Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac dealers delivered 21,091 vehicles in August 2013 an increase of 0.1 per cent compared to last August. Overall, retail sales were up 5 per cent and fleet sales were down 18 per cent.

Some mainstream import-nameplate vehicle manufacturers enjoyed positive results in August, with Honda/Acura (+18.6%), Nissan/Infiniti (+29.4%) and Mitsubishi (+12.4%) showing strong gains. Kia (-2.3%), Toyota/Lexus (+0.5%) and Volkswagen (+0.4%) underperformed the overall market (+6.5%).

Despite its overall performance, Volkswagen Canada reported that August was its 20th consecutive month of record results. This surpassed the previous mark of 5,782 set just last year. Year-to-date sales of 42,248 are 7% over last year (39,451).

Among luxury brands thus far in 2013, sales have been inconsistent and August was no exception; BMW/MINI (-14.7%) evinced a marked volume decline while competitors Audi (+9.9%) and Mercedes-Benz/smart (+23.0%) improved on their respective 2012 performances. Lower volume luxury OEMs surged in August, with buyers expressing greater interest in Jaguar (+125.5%), Land Rover (+19.9%), Porsche (+25.1%) and Volvo (+17.8%).

www.desrosiers.ca