Bad Weather Dumps on January U.S. Sales

Strong U.S. sales results were not expected in January, and bad weather, especially in the Midwest and Northeast, made sure that was the case.

Based on daily selling rates, January’s results marked the first year-over-year decline since August 2010.

Sales totaled 1.009 million units for a daily selling rate of 40,345, 3.0% below year-ago’s 41,611, with 25 selling days both periods.

January’s seasonally adjusted annual rate of 15.2 million light vehicles was the same as year-ago, although it dropped from December’s 15.3 million.

Poor weather across much of the country both at the beginning and near the end of the month likely caused the downturn from year-ago. Some auto makers also indicated deliveries to fleets were deferred to later in the year, having an especially negative effect on car volume.

CUVs, vans and luxury cars were among the month’s successes. Including luxury trucks, sales of all luxury segments increased 3.7% from year-ago. Among luxury brands, only Cadillac, Porsche and Volvo posted declines.

For Cadillac, January’s downturn was the first since September 2012 as all of its lines dropped from the same year-ago period except for the SRX and ELR, which went on sale in December. Porsche’s decline was its second in three months, although its previous shortfall was May 2012.

Sales of luxury cars by BMW, Infiniti, Jaguar, Lexus, Lincoln and Tesla all topped year-ago.

The redesigned Chevrolet Corvette nearly tripled volume from year-ago and helped push up sales of luxury sports cars 48%. Luxury Specialty cars increased 62%, thanks to the new BMW 4-Series and Infiniti Q60.

CUVs remained the main driver for growth. Segment sales increased 7.5%, with double-digit gains for the Small, Middle and Large-Luxury sectors. Indeed, CUV share in January of 28.0% was the highest for the group in any month, and well above year-ago’s 25.2%.

Several of the mainstays in the CUV segment posted declines from year-ago, but those were more than offset by strong results from Audi and BMW nameplates; the new Jeep Cherokee; redesigned vehicles such as the Nissan Rogue, Subaru Forester and Toyota Highlander; and the recently refreshed Toyota RAV4.

Suffering declines from year-ago, and somewhat sharply, were small and midsize cars, SUVs and pickups.

Combined sales of Lower Middle and Upper Middle cars fell 19.5% from year-ago. Small cars dropped 5.7%.

Sales of large pickups fell 4.5%, the segment’s first decline in 16 months. Only the Ram pickup and Toyota Tundra posted increases.

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