World Vehicle Sales Down 2.1% in May

Global vehicle sales totaled 7.2 million in May, down 2.1% from year-ago. This was the greatest year-over-year decrease since February 2013’s 5.0% drop.

North America was the only region to surpass last year’s performance, as deliveries rose 2.4% in the month to 1.97 million units. The continent accounted for 27.4% of global registrations.

The U.S. ticked up 1.8% in May with 1.7 million units sold. Sales in Canada also rose slightly, up 1.2% to 201,627 vehicles. Mexico continued to show strong growth in May with a 14.9% increase over prior-year to 104,545 units.

Sales in Asia-Pacific were below last year from the second month in a row, slipping 2.0%. The 3.24 million vehicles sold were 45.0% of the world tally. Year-to-date, the region was 1.3% below like-2014.

China, the largest market with 1.9 million monthly deliveries, fell 0.4% short of last year. Japan (-7.6%), South Korea (-2.0%) and Australia (-1.3%) also brought the region total down.

The only major Asian country to improve over 2014 was India, up 4.5% to 270,000 registrations. Sales in the other countries with positive results summed to less than 10% of the market.

Europe also recorded a 2.0% decline over year-ago, totaling 1.55 million units, or 21.6% of the worldwide figure. Through the first five months of 2015, deliveries were 1.9% above prior-year.

Results were mixed amongst the top-selling countries. Italy (+10.3%) and the U.K. (+4.2%) showed growth from 2014, but not enough to outweigh poor results from Russia (-37.1%), Germany (-6.9%) and France (-3.8%).

South America again showed the greatest drop of any region, plunging 21.8% to 359,000 units and falling from 6.2% to 5% of the world total.

Except for Argentina (+5.2%), all nations posted double-digit year-over-year declines. In the continent’s main market, Brazil, deliveries slipped 27.5% to 212,713.

Through May, 36.1 million vehicles were sold worldwide, down 0.1% from like-2014.

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