November World Sales Growth Remains Low

Although Thailand’s October floods had less impact on world vehicle production than anticipated, the disaster did provide downward pressure on sales for some auto makers – particularly Honda.

Global auto makers still sold 6.52 million vehicles in November, the fourth highest monthly total in 2011. Deliveries rose only 2.3% above year-ago, but did exceed October’s 1.3% gain.

North America continued to outperform other regions on a year-over-year basis, registering a 13.3% increase compared with like-2010.

In the U.S., the world’s second-largest vehicle market, deliveries climbed 14.6% in November for the best seasonally adjusted sales rate of the year. Mexico deliveries grew 9.6% to 85,000 units, while Canada was up 5.2% to 125,000.

Total vehicle sales of 1.23 million units gave the North America region an 18.8% share of world vehicle sales, down from October’s 19.9%.

Markets in the Asia/Pacific region experienced wildly divergent results in November. Japan’s sales surged 22.2% to 396,000 units, making it the third-largest market in the world. Not surprisingly, Thailand’s deliveries plunged 67.5% from year-ago.

China’s sales in the world’s largest vehicle market continued to trail year-ago on a monthly basis, falling 2.6% in November and climbing just 3% year-to-date.

Collectively, Asia/Pacific markets inched up 0.1% over year-ago in the month to 2.81 million vehicles, accounting for 43.1% of total global vehicle sales.

Europe saw a 1.2% uptick in November with sales of 1.65 million units, for a 25.2% world market share. Germany again led the region with 302,000 deliveries, but still dropped from the fourth largest market to the fifth behind Brazil.

Russia continued its streak of double-digit growth in November, up 26% over year-ago to 252,000 units, the second-best in Europe. France was down 4.7%, the U.K. fell 1% and Italy rose 2.6%, rounding out Europe’s top-five vehicle markets.

Brazil’s deliveries slipped 1% to 325,000 units, equating to 5% of total vehicle sales worldwide. Growth cooled to single-digits in Argentina, up 8.4% in the month compared with 34.9% in October. However, South America’s overall share of global vehicle sales rose to 7.8% in November from 7.4% in October.

With 71 million deliveries through November, total world vehicle sales were tracking 4.5% above year-ago for 2011.

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