Record July LV Sales in Canada

Fewer Canadian buyers took home new cars and light trucks in July than they did in May or June, but the selling pace was still strong enough to establish a new sales record for the month.

Dealers sold 6,822 new light-vehicles on each of 26 selling days in July, pushing total deliveries to a July benchmark of 177,371 units.

That was off 3.9% from June’s 7,099-a-day rate on sales of 177,471 vehicles, but 0.4% better than the prior July record of 176,750 units set just a year ago at a rate of 6,798 daily.  

Like their Southern counterparts, Canadian dealers can’t seem to sate consumers’ appetite for light trucks, demand for which soared to a July record of 111,009, besting by 7.9% the prior July peak of 102,925 set in 2014.

In addition, July light-truck deliveries were third-best for any month in history, trailing only the all-time high 114,554 sold in May and the 111,778 units delivered in May 2014.  

Indeed, at 4,270 daily, the July light-truck selling pace was second best for any month ever, falling just 3.1% short of May’s 4,406 units daily. It actually surpassed by 3.2% May 2014’s 4,140-unit rate, but an extra selling day (27) that month relegated July to third-place in total volume.

Starting with 101,951 units in April 2014, Canadian light-truck sales have breached the 100,000-unit mark only nine times in history, four of them this year.

Things were not so rosy on the car side.

July sales of 66,362 units were down 6.4% from June and 10.1% from the year earlier, ranking only 23rd for the month in the last 30 years, far below the record 99,680 cars sold in July 1986.

Among the leading automakers, FCA remained in the top spot with a 1.9% increase over year-ago, while fifth-place Honda posted the largest year-over-year gain at 10.4%. Fourth-place Toyota edged ahead by 1.7%, while second-place Ford and third-place General Motors saw their sales fall 6.5% and 4.8%, respectively.

Industry LV sales in the first seven months of the year reached a record 1,108,804 units, 2.3% more than the 1,083,593 vehicles sold in like-2014. FCA has widened its lead over Ford to 10.5% from 2.0% a year earlier. GM has narrowed gap between itself and the No.2 automaker to 5.9% from 19.2%, while maintaining a 21.7% margin over Toyota compared with prior year’s 20.2%.

Ford’s weaker position this year stems largely from its 13.4% decline in January-July car sales as well as a 6.1% shortfall in F-Series deliveries

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