New sales showing continued improvement

Image credit: Depositphotos.com

It’s been 10 straight months of new vehicle sales increases in Canada. Though the bar is low because of weak sales in 2022, DesRosiers Automotive Consultants is touting the news as continued positivity for the industry.

The group noted that it expected auto sales to increase despite weakening economic news — pent-up demand is overcoming high interest rates and stagnant, or even declining, economic numbers.

August new sales numbers came in at just under 150,000, up 18 per cent from the same time last year, though that was the worst August performance since 1999.

“Fueled by improved vehicle availability and pent-up demand from the 1.1 million ‘lost sales’ that never happened in 2020-2022, the market in August performed strongly, making it now 10 months in a row that we have seen year-over-year market growth,” said the company’s managing partner Andrew King.

These new numbers put the sales pace at 1.65 million units. Last year ended with fewer than 1.5 million units sold. DesRosiers sees the numbers as “a positive sign of market resilience to date. It will be interesting to see if market momentum can be sustained in the coming months in light of high interest rates, weakening economic performance, and record high new vehicle prices.”