US car sales analysis June 2019 – brands

After managing to eke out its first sales increase of the year in May, the US market was back to where it had spend every other month in 2019 – firmly, if not deeply in the red. This time, this meant a sales decline of 2.2% compared to June’19, perfectly in line with the 2.3% YTD sales decline. That said, many in the market remain optimistic sales will pick up later in the year, especially if interest rates are once again lowered, reducing the cost of auto financing.

Highlights:

• Mainstream brands saw their sales decline by 3.4%, slightly worse than the YTD average of 2.9%, while luxury brands saw their sales grow by a sturdy 6.9%, considerably better than their 2.2% YTD average
• Four out of the Top 10 brands registered positive sales growth in June, a fall on the six brands who registered positive growth in May
• Remarkably, the Top 6 brands all saw their sales fall, with the Top 3 registering sales declines roughly in line with their single-digit YTD sales declines
• The “slow but steady” experience of the Top 3 contrasts with the experience of brands ranked 4th through 6th: Honda (4th) and Jeep (6th) both had another bad month, pushing their YTD sales growth further into the red, while Nissan (5th) slid back into almost-20% sales decline after two months of promising sales increases
• As though mocking the brands immediately above it, Ram registered growth of over 45%, the highest month-on-month growth rate in its short history, and almost topping the June’19 sales figure of its sister brand Jeep in the process, and putting it within 200 cars of the YTD figure for 8th-place Hyundai
• Brands ranked 8th through 10th, Hyundai, Subaru and Kia, all managed to register positive sales growth, contributing to their mildly positive YTD sales figure for the first half of the year

• Compared to the relatively poor performance of the mainstream brands in the Top 10, mainstream brands outside the Top 10 had a reasonable month, either registering growth in the high single digits (GMC*, VW, and Buick*), or low double digits (Mitsubishi, with sales recovering from two months of serious sales declines)
• None of the remaining mainstream brands’ sales declines were particularly surprising, although the fact that Chrysler saw its sales fall by just 4.0% must count as a good month, given its sales decline of over a quarter so far this year
• Among the top luxury brands BMW and Mercedes-Benz both registered positive growth, with the former placing ahead thanks to its good 7.5% sales increase, but both barely stayed ahead of Tesla*, whose sales once again broke through the 25,000 level
• By contrast, both Lexus and Audi registered mild sales declines, while registered a mild sales increase
• Further down, Acura had another bad month, with the 16.4% sales decline almost erasing its YTD sales increase, while Infiniti, Lincoln and Land Rover all saw sales declines in the high single digits
• Genesis once again saw sales more than double on this month last year, although it fell 5 cars (!) short of outselling Jaguar this time around (although that’s hardly good news for the British brand, which after a remarkable growth earlier this year seems to be sliding into the red once again)

Brand ranking

 

aRank	Brand	Jun’19a	Jun’18a	Changea	YTD Rank	2019aa	2018aa	Changea
a1	Ford	209,922aa	220,003aa	-4.6%	a1	1,180,539aa	1,221,445aa	-3.3%
a2	Toyota	179,305aa	185,851aa	-3.5%	a2	1,016,373aa	1,054,309aa	-3.6%
a3	Chevrolet*	166,004aa	178,314aa	-6.9%	a3	935,445aa	1,015,804aa	-7.9%
a4 (1)	Honda	123,753aa	132,031aa	-6.3%	a4	703,228aa	715,171aa	-1.7%
a5 (1)	Nissan	113,665aa	134,398aa	-15.4%	a5	653,978aa	708,525aa	-7.7%
a6	Jeep	76,826aa	86,989aa	-11.7%	a6	456,281aa	495,022aa	-7.8%
a7 (3)	Ram	75,227aa	51,729aa	45.4%	a9 (2)	333,168aa	260,341aa	28.0%
a8 (1)	Hyundai	64,202aa	63,256aa	1.5%	a8 (1)	333,328aa	327,786aa	1.7%
a9 (1)	Subaru	61,511aa	59,841aa	2.8%	a7 (1)	339,525aa	322,860aa	5.2%
b10 (1)	Kia	56,801aa	56,571aa	0.4%	b10 (1)	304,844aa	293,563aa	3.8%
b11	GMC*	51,739aa	48,420aa	6.9%	b11 (1)	277,277aa	269,799aa	2.8%
b12	Dodge	38,561aa	46,387aa	-16.9%	b12	228,099aa	250,933aa	-9.1%
b13 (2)	VW	31,725aa	28,941aa	9.6%	b13 (1)	184,608aa	172,898aa	6.8%
b14 (1)	BMW	31,627aa	29,407aa	7.5%	b15 (1)	156,440aa	153,386aa	2.0%
b15 (1)	Mercedes-Benz	29,201aa	28,999aa	0.7%	b14 (1)	163,421aa	175,758aa	-7.0%
b16 (7)	Tesla**	25,700aa	11,202aa	129.4%	b20 (8)	84,575aa	44,177aa	91.4%
b17	Lexus	23,047aa	23,750aa	-3.0%	b17	135,735aa	135,000aa	0.5%
b18 (2)	Mazda	22,828aa	26,893aa	-15.1%	b16 (1)	138,555aa	163,924aa	-15.5%
b19 (1)	Audi	19,409aa	19,471aa	-0.3%	b19	101,440aa	107,942aa	-6.0%
b20 (1)	Buick*	18,885aa	17,485aa	8.0%	b18	107,237aa	110,730aa	-3.2%
b21 (1)	Cadillac*	13,528aa	12,757aa	6.0%	b21	75,660aa	77,576aa	-2.5%
b22 (1)	Chrysler	12,941aa	13,484aa	-4.0%	b24 (4)	64,422aa	88,630aa	-27.3%
b23 (1)	Mitsubishi	12,317aa	11,149aa	10.5%	b23 (1)	71,097aa	67,327aa	5.6%
b24 (4)	Acura	12,148aa	14,532aa	-16.4%	b22	73,767aa	72,653aa	1.5%
b25 (1)	Volvo	9,934aa	9,868aa	0.7%	b27 (1)	50,120aa	47,622aa	5.2%
b26 (1)	Infiniti	9,839aa	10,698aa	-8.0%	b25 (2)	63,058aa	72,170aa	-12.6%
b27	Lincoln	8,769aa	9,534aa	-8.0%	b26 (1)	50,915aa	50,269aa	1.3%
b28	Land Rover	6,593aa	6,982aa	-5.6%	b28 (1)	46,123aa	44,779aa	3.0%
b29	Porsche	5,205aa	4,892aa	6.4%	b29	30,257aa	29,421aa	2.8%
b30	Mini	3,235aa	4,146aa	-22.0%	b30	17,583aa	22,636aa	-22.3%
b31	Jaguar	1,892aa	2,353aa	-19.6%	b31	16,282aa	14,787aa	10.1%
b32 (3)	Genesis	1,887aa	796aa	137.1%	b32 (2)	10,007aa	7,262aa	37.8%
b33 (1)	Alfa Romeo	1,595aa	2,249aa	-29.1%	b33 (1)	9,037aa	12,265aa	-26.3%
b34 (1)	Fiat	933aa	1,426aa	-34.6%	b35 (2)	5,103aa	8,285aa	-38.4%
b35 (1)	Maserati*	925aa	950aa	-2.6%	b34 (1)	5,550aa	5,563aa	-0.2%
b36 (2)	Lamborghini*	232aa	125aa	85.6%	b36 (1)	1,392aa	750aa	85.6%
b37 (2)	McLaren*	180aa	116aa	55.2%	b37 (1)	1,206aa	680aa	77.4%
b38 (2)	Bentley*	169aa	165aa	2.4%	b38 (2)	1,014aa	982aa	3.3%
b39 (1)	Rolls-Royce*	110aa	108aa	1.9%	b39 (1)	660aa	647aa	2.0%
b40 (3)	Smart	74aa	126aa	-41.3%	b40 (1)	496aa	650aa	-23.7%

* Estimate