Having see-sawed through the first part of the year, the market followed up May’s growth with another healthy performance in June. With sales growing all around on the back of healthy demand and sky-high incentives, it seems that the market is well on its way to recover from a dip in 2017. If the fundamentals remain as they are, with high consumer confidence, mid-level gas prices, and the economy chugging along very nicely, 2018 may be yet another bumper year.
Highlights:
- Remarkably, all brands in the Top 10 posted positive growth in June
- The big winners were, much like in May, Jeep and Hyundai, with growth rates approaching 20% (though their YTD stories are rather different, with Jeep at 20%+, while Hyundai remains in the red), and Subaru, growing by over 15%
- By comparison, the 1.0% growth rate of Ford, 2.5% growth rate of Nissan, and 0.8% growth rate of Kia can be viewed as something of a disappointment, especially as the consolidated General Motors saw sales rise by almost 6%
- Chrysler was the only non-niche mainstream brand that saw its sales fall (by a massive 31.7%), though the smaller brands selling mostly small cars once again saw some miserable sales performance: Mini was down 6.0%, Fiat down 36.4%, and Smart down 44.2%
- The other mainstream brands all had a good June, with particularly good performances coming from Mazda (up 20.4%) and Mitsubishi (up 46.2%)
- By contrast, luxury brands did not have a great June, with sales rising by 0.9%, relative to a 5.7% growth for luxury car brands
- The luxury brands that did not do so well in June include Mercedes-Benz (sales down 9.7%), Lexus (down 2.6%), Infiniti (down 12.8%), Jaguar (down 20.1%) and Genesis (down over half)
- Of the remaining luxury brands many towards the front of the rankings recorded slow growth, with brands further back like Volvo (up 35.1%), Land Rover (up 21.2%), Tesla (sales up 36.4%) and Alfa Romeo (sales more than doubled) being the only ones to record solid growth figures
- Towards the back, the ultra-luxury Bentley saw its sales fall by almost 25%, a poor performance relative to the 36.5% growth at McLaren, or the modest growth recorded by Rolls-Royce and Lamborghini
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Brand ranking
Monthly YTD # Model Jun’18 Jun’17 Δ # 2018 2017 Δ a1 General Motors 256,976 243,151 
5.7%a1 1,474,170 1,414,442 4.2%a2 Ford 220,003 217,891 1.0%a2 1,221,445 1,238,060 
-1.3%a3 Toyota 185,851 177,973 4.4%a3 1,054,310 1,021,233 3.2%a4 Nissan 134,398 131,057 2.5%a5 ( 1)708,525 740,545 -4.3%a5 Honda 132,031 125,755 5.0%a4 ( 1)715,171 718,015 -0.4%a6 Jeep 86,989 73,153 18.9%a6 495,022 406,291 21.8%a7 ( 1)Hyundai 63,256 52,894 19.6%a7 327,785 336,459 -2.6%a8 ( 1)Subaru 59,841 52,057 15.0%a8 322,860 304,810 5.9%a9 ( 2)Kia 56,571 56,143 0.8%a9 293,563 295,736 -0.7%b10 Ram 51,729 48,645 6.3%b10 260,341 279,595 -6.9%b11 Dodge 46,387 42,550 9.0%b11 250,933 260,980 -3.8%b12 ( 1)BMW 29,407 28,962 1.5%b15 ( 1)153,386 149,086 2.9%b13 ( 1)Mercedes-Benz 28,999 32,102 -9.7%b12 175,758 177,760 -1.1%b14 Volkswagen 28,941 27,377 5.7%b13 172,898 161,238 7.2%b15 ( 1)Mazda 26,893 22,342 20.4%b14 ( 1)163,924 141,624 15.7%b16 ( 1)Lexus 23,750 24,395 -2.6%b16 135,000 133,760 0.9%b17 ( 1)Audi 19,471 19,416 0.3%b17 107,942 102,971 4.8%b18 ( 1)Acura 14,532 14,038 3.5%b19 ( 1)72,653 73,871 -1.6%b19 ( 2)Chrysler 13,484 19,741 -31.7%b18 88,630 102,095 -13.2%b20 ( 2)Mitsubishi 11,149 7,625 46.2%b21 ( 1)67,327 54,576 23.4%b21 ( 1)Infiniti 10,698 12,271 -12.8%b20 ( 1)72,170 79,143 -8.8%b22 ( 1)Volvo 9,868 7,303 35.1%b23 ( 1)47,622 34,105 39.6%b23 ( 2)Lincoln 9,534 9,275 2.8%b22 ( 1)50,269 56,337 -10.8%b24 Land Rover 6,982 5,760 21.2%b24 ( 1)44,779 35,839 24.9%b25 ( 2)Tesla* 6,000 4,400 36.4%b25 ( 1)36,000 26,400 36.4%b26 ( 1)Porsche 4,892 4,516 8.3%b26 ( 1)29,421 27,568 6.7%b27 ( 1)Mini 4,146 4,410 -6.0%b27 22,636 22,205 1.9%b28 Jaguar 2,353 2,946 -20.1%b28 14,787 20,665 -28.4%b29 ( 2)Alfa Romeo 2,249 1,017 121.1%b29 ( 3)12,265 3,719 229.8%b30 ( 1)Fiat 1,426 2,242 -36.4%b30 ( 1)8,285 14,682 -43.6%b31 ( 1)Maserati 950 900 5.6%b32 ( 1)5,563 6,720 -17.2%b32 ( 2)Genesis 796 1,613 -50.7%b31 ( 1)7,262 9,901 -26.7%b33 ( 1)Bentley 165 218 -24.3%b33 ( 1)982 1,148 -14.5%b34 ( 1)Smart 126 226 -44.2%b35 ( 2)650 1,983 -67.2%b35 ( 2)McLaren 116 85 36.5%b34 ( 3)680 387 75.7%b36.5 ( 0.5)Rolls-Royce 90 86 4.7%b36.5 ( 0.5)540 513 5.3%b36.5 ( 1.5)Lamborghini 90 88 2.3%b36.5 ( 1.5)540 528 2.3%* estimates