Honda Claims Retail Sales Leadership

The Honda brand says more than 98% of the 668,597 units it sold in the first five months of 2013 went to retail customers, citing R.L. Polk & Co. new-vehicle registration data.

Further, Honda says it leads in retail share in the industry's top segments.

"Honda's four best-selling models, the Accord, Civic, CR-V and Odyssey, lead their respective segments in sales to retail customers," the auto maker says. "Together, these segments represent more than 50% of all light-duty vehicle sales in the U.S."

The No.2 Japanese auto maker says 98% of Accord buyers this year have been retail, or individual, customers, making the car an outlier in the midsize-sedan segment in the U.S., where typically 30% of units are sold to fleet buyers, the auto maker says.

Honda long has touted its aversion to fleet sales, vehicles sold for either corporate or government usage or to daily rental car firms. While American Honda has no fleet division to track such sales, it earlier this year estimated its fleet percentage at 1%, by supposing that four or more vehicles sold to the same customer was a fleet sale.

The Polk data shows 19% of all light-duty vehicles sales through the end of May were to non-retail buyers, Honda estimates.

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