Cars Drive Canada to March LV Drop

Due to plummeting car sales, new March light-vehicle deliveries in Canada dropped to 186,558 units, or 6,663 on each of 28 selling days. Compared with the 6,930 units sold each of 27 selling days last year, on volume of 187,098, March’s LV tally was down 3.8%.

Car sales slipped 14.9% to 53,788 from like-2017’s 60,973. The top three companies that account for 41.4% of the market share saw great declines in March, starting with No.1 Honda down 21.6%, Toyota, 6.7%, and General Motors, 15.1%. Porsche continued to crush this segment for the eighth month in a row with large gains (+135.8%) after last month’s 196.4% soar and January’s 45.7% bump. Losses every month so far this year put Canadian year-to-date car sales 7.6% behind totaling 120,828.

Light-truck sales inched 1.5% above last year totaling 132,770. The Detroit Three, the top three light-truck makers accounting for 52.9% of the market, came in under year ago (GM, -0.1%; FCA, -6.1%; and Ford, -4.7%) but all within a thousand units each.

The 90.6% boost in Mini Countryman sales wasn't enough to offset losses posted by all other BMW models, including the introduction of the all-new X2, resulting in a 19.3% drop for the company. Volkswagen saw the greatest growth in the group, soaring 226.4% with new domestic sales of the Tiguan and all-new Atlas. Volvo jumped 91.4% with the introduction of the ’18 XC40 and booming XC90 sales (+80.5%).

FCA lost monthly sales leadership, at least temporarily, as its LV sales volume fell 11.0% from year-ago. Rival GM nabbed first place on sales of 30,159 vehicles, a drop of 3.4% on like-2017. GM was also on top for the year, with 64,931 units to FCA’s 60,813, a decent gap compared to a year ago when FCA led only 63,805 to 61,248.

Despite March’s drop, LV sales three-month year-to-date total was 429,265, 2.1% above like-2017’s 420,321.

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