Light-vehicle sales in Mexico started the year on a record note, with 3,895 units sold each of 26 selling days for the grand total of 103,603 deliveries.
Not only was that a 16.7% gain on prior year’s 3,416-a-day pace, on volume of 85,389 units, it surpassed by 6.6% the 3,736 LVs sold daily in 2007, when the prior January record of 97,135 units was set.
It was an auspicious start to a year already being forecast by industry prognosticators at a record volume just shy of 1.2 million LVs, or 5%-6% better than record-year 2014.
Analysts are attributing the robust outlook to record production and exports, helped along by the slumping value of the peso vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar that is seen boosting both jobs and wages.
Ironically, neither cars nor light trucks individually reached record levels last month
Car sales, totaling 68,973 units, or 2,653 daily, were second-best for the month, trailing by 8.3% the 69,040-unit January record set in 2002 at a rate of 2,762 per day. Still, they eclipsed prior-year’s 54,949 units, 2,198 daily, by 20.7%.
Sales of 34,629 light trucks ranked only fourth-best for the month.
At 1,332 daily, they trailed record-year 2008’s 1,635-a-day pace, on volume of 40,874 units, by 18.5%. Compared with like 2014, light-truck deliveries were ahead by 9.4%
FCA Mexico (formerly Chrysler de Mexico), Ford and General Motors collectively sold 6.1% more LVs daily in January compared with a year earlier, but their market share fell to 31.2% from 34.2%. Taking share were Asian brands, including Honda, industry-leader Nissan and Toyota and Hyundai, the latter having only recently established its own independent dealer network.
