Canada LV Dealers Continue Winning Ways

Canadian dealers rolled a record 122,808 new light vehicles off their lots in February, besting by 3.2% the prior peak of 118,968 set a year ago, while beating January’s 110,870 units by 10.8%. All three months had 24 selling days.

As in the U.S., light trucks remained the driving force in the Canadian market with sales of those vehicles also peaking at 85,125 last month, the highest February tally ever and one that beat the prior record of 80,115 units sold a year ago by 6.3%.

Dealers’ February light-truck performance marked the fourth consecutive year of record sales for the month.

Record light-truck deliveries contrasted with the weak car market, where February sales were the worst for the month in 32 years.

Although they bested January’s anemic 32,202 units, at just 37,683, February car deliveries were down 3.0% from the 38,853 sold a year ago and slid 2.4% under the 38,626 delivered in like-2011.

LV sales in the first two months of the year totaled 233,678, up 2.8% from prior-year’s 227,347.

FCA Canada again led the market, although its margin over archrival Ford narrowed to 5.1% from 7.1%.

Market share for Daimler, Honda, Mazda, Subaru, Tesla and Volkswagen/Audi increased at least to some degree at the expense of FCA, Hyundai, Kia, Nissan and Toyota.

[email protected]