US car sales analysis April 2019 – brands

Krzysztof Wozniak
Car Sales US
1

 

 

The US car market continued its decline, with sales falling for the fourth time in as many months. While the actual rate of decline, 2.0%, was less severe than in February and March, this provides little comfort as April 2019 benefitted from an extra selling day relative to April 2018. Overall, the market has declined by 2.9% so far in 2019.

Highlights:

  • Mainstream brands saw their sales decline by 1.9%, a slightly slower rate of decline than in the past few months, while luxury brands saw their sales grow by 0.4%, their worst performance so far in 2019
  • Five out of the Top 10 brands registered positive sales growth in April, an increase on the four brands that registered positive growth in February and March, although two of those five brands saw their sales grow by less than 1%
  • The big, positive surprise in the Top 5 was the 10.7% sales growth registered by Nissan – it was the first time that the brand registered positive growth in 2019, although there is still a long way if it is to come out of the red for the year-to-date sales
  • Elsewhere in the Top 10, Ram enjoyed its best month in an already-stellar 2019, with sales up by almost a quarter, while Kia‘s sales growth slowed down after reaching double digits in March
Ram ProMaster

 

  • Outside the Top 10, there was one big surprise among the mainstream brands: Mitsubishi, having registered positive growth every month in 2019 so far, including a giant 37% increase in sales in March, registered a 13% drop in sales, presumably because of a sales period which front-loaded sales into March
  • Our estimates suggest GMC and Buick saw their sales grow by a few percentage points, while VW once again registered positive growth, putting its YTD sales more firmly into the black
  • By comparison, after three months of mild sales declines Dodge saw its sales collapse by a quarter, while Mazda, Chrysler, Mini and Fiat continued to see their sales slide
  • Among luxury brands there was the usual great performance from Tesla (sales almost doubled on April’18), but the real standout was Genesis, which saw sales rise by 56%, the fastest month-on-month rate of sales growth the brand has ever recorded; however, as a result of the sales collapse Genesis experienced in 2018, sales this month (1,605) were still below the (modest) record the brand set in December’17, when it sold almost 2,000 cars
Genesis G70

 

  • After a good March the leading luxury brands had another bad month, with Lexus seeing its sales fall, Mercedes-Benz once again registering a double-digit sales decline, and Audi seeing its sales fall at the fastest rate in many years
  • Further down, many luxury brands registered a steady single-digit sales decline, with the surprisingly bad performance coming from Porsche, which saw its sales fall by almost 10%
  • Elsewhere, Land Rover once again saw good growth, putting the brand firmly in the black YTD, after a bad March, while Jaguar once again managed positive sales growth, albeit nothing as quick as the 60% growth it managed in February

Brand ranking

Rank Brand Apr’19 Apr’18 Δ YTD Rank 2019 2018 Δ
a1 Ford 186,233 195,338 -4.7% a1 748,214 769,670 -2.8%
a2 Toyota 162,506 170,706 -4.8% a2 639,431 678,529 -5.8%
a3 Chevrolet* 157,016 164,439 -4.5% a3 605,735 655,358 -7.6%
a4 Honda 114,088 113,813 0.2% a4 (1) 447,490 442,890 1.0%
a5 (1) Nissan 87,207 78,804 10.7% a5 (1) 418,743 453,920 -7.7%
a6 (1) Jeep 76,325 82,641 -7.6% a6 289,129 310,746 -7.0%
a7 (1) Subaru 57,288 53,170 7.7% a7 214,042 202,873 5.5%
a8 (1) Hyundai 55,420 55,035 0.7% a8 203,005 199,550 1.7%
a9 (1) Ram 53,811 43,074 24.9% a9 (3) 190,824 156,728 21.8%
b10 (1) Kia 51,385 50,585 1.6% b10 (1) 187,981 177,530 5.9%
b11 GMC* 43,942 42,699 2.9% b11 (1) 169,519 174,043 -2.6%
b12 (2) VW 31,309 28,794 8.7% b13 (1) 117,181 112,746 3.9%
b13 (1) Dodge 31,262 40,994 -23.7% b12 (1) 141,779 157,965 -10.2%
b14 (1) Mercedes-Benz 25,631 30,022 -14.6% b14 (1) 104,278 116,682 -10.6%
b15 BMW 23,816 23,482 1.4% b15 (1) 97,704 97,317 0.4%
b16 (1) Lexus 21,360 21,642 -1.3% b17 88,151 85,859 2.7%
b17 (1) Mazda 19,702 23,056 -14.5% b16 (1) 90,535 107,051 -15.4%
b18 (1) Buick* 18,149 17,433 4.1% b18 70,014 73,937 -5.3%
b19 (1) Audi 15,024 19,104 -21.4% b19 63,139 69,156 -8.7%
b20 (1) Cadillac* 12,595 13,329 -5.5% b21 48,590 50,056 -2.9%
b21 (6) Tesla** 11,925 6,025 97.9% b24 (3) 42,525 24,005 77.2%
b22 Acura 11,687 11,888 -1.7% b22 (1) 48,072 45,302 6.1%
b23 (3) Chrysler 8,987 14,189 -36.7% b25 (5) 40,578 60,422 -32.8%
b24 (1) Infiniti 8,491 8,960 -5.2% b23 (1) 42,806 49,847 -14.1%
b25 (1) Lincoln 7,986 8,518 -6.2% b26 (1) 32,961 30,980 6.4%
b26 Land Rover 7,165 6,448 11.1% b27 (1) 32,193 30,694 4.9%
b27 (2) Mitsubishi 6,963 7,990 -12.9% b20 (4) 49,030 43,762 12.0%
b28 Porsche 5,018 5,570 -9.9% b28 20,042 19,524 2.7%
b29 Mini 2,621 3,731 -29.8% b30 (1) 11,526 14,264 -19.2%
b30 Jaguar 2,147 2,019 6.3% b29 (1) 12,369 10,068 22.9%
b31 (2) Genesis 1,605 1,028 56.1% b32 (1) 5,807 5,390 7.7%
b32 (1) Alfa Romeo 1,584 1,847 -14.2% b31 5,870 7,639 -23.2%
b33 (1) Fiat 931 1,404 -33.7% b34 (2) 3,145 5,418 -42.0%
b34 Maserati* 925 950 -2.6% b33 (1) 3,700 3,663 1.0%
b35 (1.5) Lamborghini* 232 125 85.6% b35 (1) 928 500 85.6%
b36 (0.5) McLaren* 180 125 44.0% b36 (1) 846 445 90.1%
b37 (2) Bentley* 169 165 2.4% b37 (2) 676 652 3.7%
b38 Rolls-Royce* 110 108 1.9% b38 440 431 2.1%
b39 Smart 85 93 -8.6% b39 316 414 -23.7%

Note: * Estimate