US car sales analysis September 2018 – brands

[UPDATED: Tesla, GM brands sales estimates]

Another month, another swing of the market. After the wild see-saw of earlier in 2018 seemed to stabilize when the market grew healthily in both May and June by an average of 5%, the market then swung back by 3.7% in July, and only recovered weakly in August. Still, that would have been preferable to the market’s performance in September, which saw a 5.5% sales decline, the largest fall of the year, brining down YTD growth to just 0.6% – another month like this and the market will go into the red for the year. It remains to be seen whether the market can regain some of the lost mojo, or whether September will end up marking the place where it all went wrong.

Highlights:

• Four out of the Top 10 brands registered positive sales growth in September, down from seven in August, and same as in July
• Remarkably, all the Top 5 brands registered substantial declines in sales of between 8% and 16%, with the biggest fall coming courtesy of General Motors, which alongside Toyota was pushed into year-on-year sales decline
• As in August the two brands with the fastest growth rate were both FCA brands: Ram saw its sales grow by 9.2%, while Jeep once again saw double-digit growth of 14.1%, although both brands’ growth rates were actually lower than in August

• Subaru and Hyundai were the other two brands in the Top 10 to register (moderate) growth, allowing the latter to almost get back to year-on-year growth, while Kia registered a moderate sales decline
• Just outside of the Top 10 Dodge registered very strong (and somewhat unexpected) growth of over 40%, all but wiping out the brand’s YTD sales decline
• Even more surprisingly, no other mainstream brand outside of the Top 10 saw their sales rise – while this was to be expected from the group of usual suspects (Mini , Chrysler, Fiat and Smart), it was unexpected to see Mazda, Volkswagen and Mitsubishi on this list, with the German brand losing its eight-month sales growth streak, while Mitsubishi underperformed substantially compared to its 20% YTD growth prior to September
• Among luxury brands, Tesla‘s sales almost tripled as the brand outsold Audi, BMW and Lexus in the standings for the first time

• All the while, despite its almost 5% sales decline Mercedes-Benz remained the top dog in the luxury battle, while Audi continued its remarkable 100+ month sales rise wave, albeit by the thinnest of margins
• Further back Acura, Volvo, Land Rover, and Porsche once again registered moderate sales growths, with only Alfa Romeo seeing substantial growth of almost 30%
• By comparison, September was not a great month for Infiniti, Lincoln or Maserati, although their travails pail in comparison to the almost-40% sales decline at Jaguar, or the sales collapse of over three-quarters over at Genesis
• Among the exclusive brands Bentley returned to (moderate) growth, although without a doubt the star performer was McLaren, which once again posted impressive growth, this time of almost 60%

• Brand ranking

  Monthly

  YTD

  #	Model	Sep’18	Sep’17	Δ	#	2018	2017	Δ
  a1	Ford	188,328	212,841	-11.5%	a1	1,803,373	1,841,665	-2.1%
  a2 (1)	Toyota	178,501	200,428	-10.9%	a2	1,610,611	1,611,625	-0.1%
  a3 (1)	Chevrolet*	177,094	200,914	-11.9%	a3	1,504,038	1,516,192	-0.8%
  a4	Honda	119,157	129,776	-8.2%	a4	1,092,514	1,117,477	-2.2%
  a5	Nissan	110,283	127,187	-13.3%	a5	1,019,433	1,082,527	-5.8%
  a6	Jeep	83,764	73,409	14.1%	a6	746,194	622,242	19.9%
  a7 (1)	Subaru	57,044	55,120	3.5%	a7 (1)	503,418	478,848	5.1%
  a8 (1)	Hyundai	56,940	55,271	3.0%	a8 (1)	492,791	496,656	-0.8%
  a9 (1)	Ram	56,447	51,686	9.2%	b10	416,661	418,693	-0.5%
  b10 (1)	Kia	51,503	52,468	-1.8%	a9	452,042	457,930	-1.3%
  b11 (3)	Dodge	42,101	29,938	40.6%	b12	359,728	365,790	-1.7%
  b12 (1)	GMC*	41,988	47,405	-11.4%	b11	395,924	405,634	-2.4%
  b13	Mercedes-Benz	30,617	32,096	-4.6%	b14 (1)	253,407	267,477	-5.3%
  b14 (2)	VW	30,555	32,112	-4.8%	b13 (1)	266,228	252,456	5.5%
  b15 (11)	Tesla*	29,975	8,095	270.3%	b21 (8)	114,537	35,140	225.9%
  b16 (1)	BMW	25,908	25,571	1.3%	b16	225,065	220,175	2.2%
  b17 (2)	Lexus	24,597	26,196	-6.1%	b17	213,622	219,659	-2.7%
  b18 (2)	Mazda	21,257	25,738	-17.4%	b15	235,122	220,297	6.7%
  b19 (1)	Audi	19,350	19,308	0.2%	b18	167,420	160,914	4.0%
  b20 (1)	Buick*	15,622	18,235	-14.3%	b19	155,606	159,830	-2.6%
  b21	Chrysler	14,683	15,759	-6.8%	b20	127,156	143,809	-11.6%
  b22 (2)	Cadillac*	13,530	16,635	-18.7%	b23 (1)	113,240	113,846	-0.5%
  b23 (1)	Acura	13,511	12,946	4.4%	b22 (1)	114,483	114,126	0.3%
  b24 (1)	Infiniti	12,536	12,745	-1.6%	b24 (1)	105,249	113,714	-7.4%
  b25 (2)	Volvo	8,715	7,900	10.3%	b27 (1)	73,929	56,966	29.8%
  b26 (2)	Lincoln	8,168	8,802	-7.2%	b26 (2)	75,280	82,722	-9.0%
  b27 (2)	Mitsubishi	7,705	8,430	-8.6%	b25	93,398	79,195	17.9%
  b28	Land Rover	6,966	6,407	8.7%	b28 (1)	65,133	54,481	19.6%
  b29	Porsche	5,102	5,059	0.8%	b29 (1)	42,626	41,237	3.4%
  b30	Mini	3,461	3,736	-7.4%	b30	34,193	34,787	-1.7%
  b31	Jaguar	2,040	3,296	-38.1%	b31	21,176	30,228	-29.9%
  b32 (2)	Alfa Romeo	1,639	1,268	29.3%	b32 (3)	18,160	7,352	147.0%
  b33 (1)	Fiat	1,185	2,206	-46.3%	b33 (1)	12,084	21,252	-43.1%
  b34 (1)	Maserati	950	1,119	-15.1%	b35 (1)	8,413	9,991	-15.8%
  b35 (2)	Genesis	419	1,736	-75.9%	b34 (1)	8,909	15,084	-40.9%
  b36 (1)	Bentley	165	156	5.8%	b36 (1)	1,477	1,672	-11.7%
  b37 (1)	McLaren	142	93	52.7%	b37 (3)	1,053	648	62.5%
  b38 (2)	Smart	98	241	-59.3%	b38 (2)	959	2,635	-63.6%
  b39	Lamborghini	94	91	3.3%	b39 (1)	846	819	3.3%
  b40	Rolls-Royce	90	86	4.7%	b40 (1)	810	771	5.1%

  Note: * Estimate