U.S. auto sales for September declined 7% year-on-year. Much of the decline was due to a fall in passenger car sales as consumers continued to opt for SUVs, crossovers and pickups. In fact, the demand level during this month was nowhere near to the demand level experienced by the industry in the year-ago period when Americans rushed out to replace vehicles demolished by Hurricane Harvey.
While robust employment opportunities and housing markets are positive signs prompting heavy buying, mounting interest rates, higher prices and fear of tariffs are some factors that the automakers have to deal with.
Here’s a detailed analysis of the performance of U.S. and other automakers.
Performance of US automakers
General Motors (GM) has stopped reporting monthly sales. Instead, the Detroit-based automaker has shifted to reporting sales on a quarterly basis. As for the third quarter, the company has witnessed similar trends of declining passenger car and rising SUV sales. Its sales amounted to 694,638 vehicles, down 11.1%. Sales plunged 11.4% for Chevrolet, 11.3% for GMC, 10.7% for Cadillac and 7.3% for Buick.
Ford (F) experienced a double-digit decline of 11.2% in September with sales coming in at 194,404 vehicles. Car sales went down 25.7%. Sales were down 2.7% for SUVs and 9.9% for trucks. F-Series pickups saw a sales decline of 8.8% with sales amounting to 75,092 units. Lincoln sales plummeted 7.2% from the year-ago period. Expedition and Navigator were the only cars to register year-over-year sales growth.
Fiat Chrysler (FCAU, Financial) sold a total of 199,819 vehicles, up 14.7% from the same period last year. The company outsold Ford for the first time in 11 years, thanks to high volume of sales of Jeep and Ram brands.
However, Mark LaNeve, Ford vice president of U.S. marketing, sales and service, had other views. He said, "We don’t worry about being in a contest with [FCA] … There have been months when we beat General Motors and we didn't pound our chests ... It was a function of timing."
Dodge brand sales jumped 40.6% while that of Ram climbed 9.2%. In contrast, sales were down 6.8% for Chrysler brand and 46.3% for Fiat brand. However, that had a negligible impact on the company’s monthly growth.
Performance of other automakers
Toyota (TM, Financial)'s sales dipped 10.4% year-over-year to 203,098 vehicles as sales decreased 10.9% for Toyota brand and 6.1% for Lexus luxury brand. Sales of trucks, SUVs and crossovers inched up a combined 1.1%. However, car sales for the month declined 25.2%.
Honda Motor co. (HMC, Financial) witnessed a sales decline of 7% to 132,668 vehicles. The sales decline was attributable to poor performance of Civic and Accord sedans whose sales fell 30% and 14.9%, respectively, in the month. In contrast, Honda Pilot sales surged a mammoth 50.2% to 15,464 units.
Nissan (NSANY, Financial) posted a double-digit sales decline of 12.2% to 122,819 units. But the company reported a combined sales growth of 6.6% with respect to SUVs, crossovers and pickups. The company’s major nemesis happened to be passenger cars whose sales plummeted 35.7% year on year.
Disclosure: I do not hold any position in the stocks mentioned in this article.
