Toyota Sales Rise 3.2% in April; Nissan Dives

Even with 24 selling days in April 2018 vs. 26 days in April 2017, Toyota posts a 3.2% adjusted increase in U.S. sales.

On volume, Toyota sold 192,348 vehicles, 4.7% less than the same month year-ago.

The Toyota Div. inched up 2.8% on a daily-selling-rate basis, while Lexus rose 6.0%.

After a few months with the Camry on top, the RAV4 again overtook the midsize sedan as Toyota’s best-selling model in a given month, racking up 31,007 units. While it was a 750-unit decline by the popular midsize CUV, on DSR the RAV4 rose 5.8%.

The Camry, redesigned for ’18, was Toyota’s second-best seller with 29,848 deliveries, good for a 2.9% DSR increase.

The Corolla compact-car lineup tallied 25,896, a 9.8% DSR falloff due to declining sales of the sedan body style. The Corolla hatchback, soon to be redesigned for ’19, rose 3.5%.

Besides the Camry and Corolla 5-door, the only other Toyota-brand car in positive territory was the Avalon. The large sedan, which has a next-gen version launching this month, saw a 28.3% DSR jump with 3,254 units sold.

Total Toyota-brand car sales were roughly 10,000 units below year-ago, falling 6.1% on a DSR basis.

Toyota light-truck sales hit another monthly record, the automaker says, with a best-ever April result of 100,681, a 10.1% DSR rise from April 2017.

The only Toyota light trucks not seeing an increase last month were the Sienna minivan (-16.0%) and the Sequoia large SUV (-1.7%).

Toyota says the Highlander 3-row CUV set a new April record, with 18,456 sold, while the C-HR small CUV, which went on sale in April 2017, had a hefty 673% surge on 3,923 sales vs. 550 year-ago, although was down from March’s 5,000-plus deliveries.

At the Lexus luxury brand, utilities again were in the black while cars were in the red.

Lexus’ two CUVs and two SUVs combined for an 8.7% increase, with all four models rising on DSR from April 2017.

The RAV4-based NX and its hybrid variant both had record April deliveries, Toyota says. The NX tallied 4,508 units, including 604 hybrids.

The compact CUV still has a way to go to best the midsize RX. The RX again was Lexus’ best-selling model with 7,710 units sold, a 6.5% DSR increase although down 1.7% in volume.

Lexus car sales recovered a bit in April from prior months in that they were flat, up 0.9%. The new LS flagship sedan helped in that regard, posting a whopping 268.1% DSR increase on 999 sales.

But Lexus also saw positive results from the ES and GS sedans, which rose 2.5% and 18.1%, respectively.

The new LC sports car contributed 179 sales to Lexus’ April tally of 21,642.

Meanwhile, the two fewer selling days in April harshly impacted fellow Japanese automaker Nissan, which posted a 22.1% DSR decline on volume of 87,764, Wards Intelligence data shows.

The Nissan brand tallied roughly 78,000 sales, a 23.2% DSR drop, while Infiniti’s roughly 9,000 units equated to a 10.1% decline.

Nearly every model in Nissan’s lineup was down from year-ago, save for the low-volume Leaf EV and NV200 van.

The Altima and Maxima sedans plunged 44.4% and 59.1%, respectively, while the normally resilient Rogue compact CUV, Nissan’s best-selling model, fell 7.7% on a DSR basis.

And, in a warning sign as it tries to reestablish itself in the fullsize-pickup segment, sales of the relatively new second-generation Titan fell 28.3%.

Infiniti’s lineup also saw all but two models in the red.

Bucking the downward trend were the QX50 and QX60 CUVs. The midsize QX50, buoyed by a new second-generation model, rose 27.9% on DSR with 1,413 sold, while the QX60 3-row CUV was up 17.9% with sales of 3,052.

Nissan blames its April decline on “intense competition in the U.S. market,” along with reduced retail and fleet sales, a spokesman says. The automaker has a rosy outlook for the months ahead due to its new Kicks small CUV coming to market, as well as a next-generation Altima later this year.

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