Auto sales figures for the American market are in and, as has long been expected, they reveal just how much new car sales slid compared to 2007. In the end there were few surprises with very little good news offered. Of all of the full line manufacturers selling cars in the domestic market, only Subaru registered a year over year increase, squeaking out a net gain of 0.3% for the year even as their December sales tumbled by 7.7%.
Understandably, the automakers seized on whatever good news they could when sharing their December 2008 sales figures or what their sales were for the entire calendar year.
Ford emphasized that its market share increased for the third consecutive month on strength of increased demand for its all new F Series pick up truck. Ford sales were still down by 32.5% for the month and 20.5% for the year, falling just three thousand units short of second place Toyota for the final month of the year.
Mercedes sales slipped by 11.2% for the year but overall Daimler AG sales fell only 1.5% thanks to the introduction of the Smart line last January. In 2008, Daimler sold 24,662 of the diminutive two seater a vehicle that was in big demand at the height of last year’s record gas prices. BMW’s slide was 15.2% for the year, but just 9.7% when MINI sales are counted. Look for both German automakers to expand their small car offerings in the coming year to take advantage of shifting consumer demand.
Of the Big Six automakers, Chrysler LLC had by far the worst year falling exactly 30% against 2007. December 2008 was particularly awful with sales down by 53.1%. Surprisingly, Hyundai wasn’t too far off of that mark, tumbling 48.3% for the month or 14% for the year.
GM closed the year with 2.95 million sales, a drop of 850,000 units over 2007. More notable was that GM hasn’t seen sales this low since 1959 when America’s population had 125 million fewer residents.
Of all of the “losers” for 2008, only Daimler, the BMW Group, Honda (-7.9%) and Volkswagen (-3.2%) managed single digit losses with most everyone else showing losses in the teens. Toyota still managed to gain market share though its sales were off by 15.4% as GM (-22.7%) and Ford (-20.5%) joined Chrysler in posting huge year over year losses.
For the year, sales totaled 13.24 million units down about 2.9 million passenger vehicles over 2007. Sales in December were actually up by 150,000 units over November 2008, which isn’t unusual given the typical year end sales that take place during the final month of the year.
With 2008 in the books, the automakers will be giving careful attention to realigning production to meet demand for the coming year. Already we know that Toyota has put a Mississippi plant on hold, while America’s domestic automakers will continue to look to pare excess capacity while trimming factory and office workers.
Consumer confidence remains low, suggesting that 2009 sales may fall short of 2008 sales especially if credit remains difficult to obtain. For consumers who have the means to purchase a new vehicle, incentives are continuing in the form of cash back rebates shaving thousands off of the sticker price to cut rate financing, sometimes both.
Source: Motor Intelligence (Autodata)
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