US car sales analysis July 2018 – brands

True to form in 2018, the market followed up two months of healthy growth with a decline in July, with sales falling by 3.7%. While this was not enough to erase all of the hard-earned gains so far this year, the YTD growth figure is now down to 1.1%. With the gap growing ever-wider between crossovers and mainstream cars, it is clear that for the growth to continue the crossover sector has to keep performing as well as it has so far this year.

Highlights:

• Only three brands in the Top 10 registered positive sales growth in July, down from all 10 in June (although this is not so far from the YTD trend in 2018, where four out of the Top 10 brands have seen their sales increase)
• Of those four brands, two registered positive growth once more in July: Jeep (up 15.2%, a bit slower than the remarkable YTD growth of 20.9%) and Subaru (up 6.7%, in line with YTD growth of 6.0%, benefitting from the introduction of the Ascent)
• The two other brands with positive YTD growth recorded a sales drop in July: GM brands were down 3.0% (relative to 3.2% YTD growth), while Toyota was 5.1% down (relative to 1.9% YTD growth)
• The one brand that experienced positive growth in July after YTD sales decline was Ram
• From the remaining brands in the Top 10 almost all saw their sales fall faster than they have so far in 2018, with the worst hit being Nissan: sales were down 15.7%, relative to 5.9% sales decline so far in 2018

• Overall, sales declines were greater for luxury brands than for mainstream brands
• Even so, only two mainstream brands registered positive sales growth in July: Volkswagen saw sales rise unexpectedly by 12.7%, while Mitsubishi continued its good roll and saw sales rise by 24.0%, roughly in line with YTD sales growth trend
• Of the remaining mainstream brands some lost out more than others, with Dodge and Mini experiencing only a moderate sales loss, Mazda and Chrysler both seeing sales fall in the low double-digits, while Fiat and Smart once again saw their sales fall by over 40%
• Among luxury brands, Audi continued its remarkable 100+ month sales rise wave, and was the only bigger luxury brand to register significantly positive sales growth; losers included Lexus, Mercedes-Benz and Acura
• Further down, Volvo, Tesla and Alfa Romeo were once again the big winners in July, followed by slowly-growing Land Rover and Porsche
• Still, moderate growth would have been something the remaining luxury brands would have happily traded for, not least Jaguar, whose sales were down 40.6%, and Genesis, whose sales fell by almost two-thirds in July
• Among the exclusive brands, Bentley, Rolls-Royce and Lamborghini all reported moderate growth in July, with McLaren yet to report their (undoubtedly also positive) figures

• Brand ranking

  Monthly

  YTD

  #	Model	Jul’18	Jul’17	Δ	#	2018	2017	Δ
  a1	General Motors	219,250	226,107	-3.0%	a1	1,693,420	1,640,549	3.2%
  a2 (1)	Ford	184,845	190,443	-2.9%	a2	1,406,290	1,428,503	-1.6%
  a3 (1)	Toyota	183,367	193,148	-5.1%	a3	1,237,677	1,214,381	1.9%
  a4	Honda	125,355	136,803	-8.4%	a4 (1)	840,526	854,818	-1.7%
  a5	Nissan	99,045	117,455	-15.7%	a5 (1)	807,570	858,000	-5.9%
  a6	Jeep	79,906	69,351	15.2%	a6	574,928	475,642	20.9%
  a7 (1)	Subaru	59,426	55,703	6.7%	a7 (1)	382,286	360,513	6.0%
  a8 (1)	Kia	53,112	56,403	-5.8%	a9	346,675	352,139	-1.6%
  a9	Hyundai	51,137	52,419	-2.4%	a8 (1)	378,922	388,878	-2.6%
  b10	Ram	45,065	44,090	2.2%	b10	305,406	323,685	-5.6%
  b11	Dodge	31,119	31,264	-0.5%	b11	282,052	292,244	-3.5%
  b12 (2)	VW	30,520	27,091	12.7%	b12 (1)	203,418	188,329	8.0%
  b13 (1)	Lexus	25,403	28,902	-12.1%	b16	160,403	162,662	-1.4%
  b14 (1)	Mazda	24,125	27,089	-10.9%	b14 (1)	188,049	168,713	11.5%
  b15 (2)	Mercedes-Benz	22,955	28,667	-19.9%	b13 (1)	198,713	206,427	-3.7%
  b16	BMW	21,982	21,965	0.1%	b15 (1)	175,368	171,051	2.5%
  b17	Audi	19,221	18,824	2.1%	b17	127,163	121,795	4.4%
  b18 (7)	Tesla*	16,775	3,105	440.3%	b25	61,387	23,245	164,1%
  b19 (1)	Acura	13,247	14,177	-6.6%	b19 (1)	85,900	88,048	-2.4%
  b20 (1)	Chrysler	11,624	13,303	-12.6%	b18	100,254	115,398	-13.1%
  b21 (1)	Mitsubishi	9,950	8,025	24.0%	b21 (1)	77,277	62,601	23.4%
  b22 (2)	Infiniti	9,747	10,840	-10.1%	b20 (1)	81,917	89,983	-9.0%
  b23	Volvo	8,622	6,967	23.8%	b24	56,244	41,072	36.9%
  b24 (3)	Lincoln	7,898	8,875	-11.0%	b23 (1)	58,167	65,212	-10.8%
  b25 (1)	Land Rover	6,209	5,915	5.0%	b24 (1)	50,988	41,754	22.1%
  b26	Mini	4,296	4,398	-2.3%	b27	26,932	26,603	1.2%
  b27	Porsche	4,020	3,901	3.1%	b26 (1)	33,441	31,469	6.3%
  b28 (3)	Alfa Romeo	2,016	1,225	64.6%	b29 (3)	14,281	4,944	188.9%
  b29 (1)	Jaguar	1,880	3,166	-40.6%	b28	16,667	23,831	-30.1%
  b30 (1)	Fiat	1,240	2,244	-44.7%	b30 (1)	9,525	16,926	-43.7%
  b31 (1)	Maserati	950	1,063	-10.6%	b32 (1)	6,513	7,783	-16.3%
  b32 (2)	Genesis	615	1,644	-62.6%	b31 (1)	7,877	11,545	-31.8%
  b33 (1)	Bentley	165	155	6.5%	b33 (1)	1,147	1,303	-12.0%
  b34 (1)	Smart	103	182	-43.4%	b34 (1)	753	2,165	-65.2%
  b35.5 (0.5)	Rolls-Royce	90	86	4.7%	b35.5 (0.5)	630	599	5.2%
  b35.5 (0.5)	Lamborghini	90	88	2.3%	b35.5 (0.5)	630	616	2.3%

  * estimates