Winners and losers in this year's vehicle market

CTVNEWS

Winners and losers in this year's vehicle market

Jeremy Cato Autos.CTV.ca
Published Wednesday, October 19, 2011 6:36AM EDT

In this photo taken July 24, 2011, a setting sun is reflected in the front grill of a new Chrysler for sale at the Chrysler dealership in Springfield, Ill. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

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Here we are in the final quarter of 2011, the home stretch for car sales. It's time to start picking winners and losers in the new vehicle market.

The biggest winner of all is the consumer. If you are shopping for a new ride you will find the marketplace awash in sales sweeteners: $2,000 here on a Volkswagen Golf, $1,000 there on an all-new Honda Civic, $3,500 here on an Infiniti G37 coupe, $4,000 there on a Nissan Rogue, $1,500 there on a Toyota Prius, and on and on and on.

To keep a tight-fisted market churning, car companies across the board are throwing big bucks at buyers. Even at that, sales for September were down by 0.4 per cent from September 2010 and year-to-date Canadian new vehicle sales are up only 1.5 per cent, notes DesRosiers Automotive Consultants.

So in a flat world for new car sales, who's winning? Chrysler Canada.

"Within the full line OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), Chrysler remains one of the strongest players in Canada and indeed was number two in the market in September ahead of General Motors," says Dennis DesRosiers in a note to clients, adding, "It is actually possible for Chrysler to catch GM by the end of the year and emerge as the number two OEM on a full-year basis in Canada."

Chrysler Canada sales through September were up 14.1 per cent and market share stood at 14.9 per cent, up from 13.2 per cent a year ago.

A rival car company boss says Chrysler is heaving great gobs of cash at consumers, and not only is that unsustainable, it's irresponsible. Naturally you might hear that from a rival. To keep up with Chrysler, other companies need to match or at least come close to matching Chrysler's offers.

The GM story is just as interesting, but for entirely different reasons.

"We don't think it will happen, but who would have ever thought that GM could be in third place in any market just a few years ago," adds DesRosiers. "GM's market share in September was only 12.5 per cent which is the lowest share for any month in decades and possibly back to the turn of the 19th century."

At 15.3 per cent, GM's market share, notes the analyst, is the same as 2008 before the bankruptcy and restructuring.

"At the time, GM talked about gaining market share in their core brands (Chevrolet, GMC, Buick and Cadillac) as they dropped all their other brands. The theory at the time was that by dropping non-core brands they could do a better job with their core brands and pick up share. This has not happened, at least not yet," says DesRosiers.

It would be tempting to call GM a loser, if the company were not profitable. We'll reserve judgment on GM until we see full-year profit numbers. So far they've been good overall and GM globally has a fat cash hoard, to boot.

Then there's Volkswagen Canada. Sales are up 20.9 per cent largely thanks to the spectacular success of the Jetta compact car (sales up 153.3 per cent on the year). Ford is Canada's No. 1 car company by sales, but struggling a bit here at the end of 2011.

"Ford was actually down by 3.0 per cent in September, although still out-performing the market YTD (year-to-date) -- up 4.2 per cent in a market up by only 1.5 per cent," says DesRosiers.

The Japanese? Generally a horror show.

In September, Toyota was down by 5.2 per cent; Suzuki down by 49.6 per cent; Subaru down by 9.7 per cent; Nissan down by 18.3 per cent; Mazda down by 15.1 per cent; Lexus down by 4.9 per cent; Honda down by 22.4 per cent. Sure, Mitsubishi sales were up 26.2 per cent and Acura up 12.4 percent, but beyond those two the story is bleak.

"With most of these Japanese OEMs, the poor performance reflects their year-to-date performance as well. In other words, this is not a one-month exception to the rest of the year," says DesRosiers.

On the luxury side, Audi is the big winner, with sales up 17.7 per cent on the year. The battle for No. 1 in premium sales, however, is between Mercedes-Benz and BMW.

Mercedes has sold 22,598 vehicles YTD and BMW has sold 22,124 vehicles. But add BMW's Mini brand and BMW/Mini is slightly ahead of MB/Smart. The winner of that race is by definition a winner. See you at the end of December for this story.

Another winner is Porsche, with sales up 27.5 per cent and struggling to find enough vehicles to meet demand, says Porsche Canada CEO Joe Lawrence. Nice problem to have.

Trucks? A winner, too.

"Despite high gas prices, light trucks continue to sell better than passenger cars," says DesRosiers. "Sales of light trucks were up 2.2 per cent in September (4.3 per cent YTD), while passenger car sales were down by 3.7 per cent in September (down 1.8 per cent YTD).

Cars are losers this year, at least compared to trucks.

Finally, let's have a look at winning models to date.

Mercedes C-Class, with September sales up 19.7 per cent and year-over-year sales up 7.1 above 2010 levels. GL-Class sales were up an impressive 116.0 per cent in September.
Diesels. At Mercedes, diesels account for 83.2 per cent of Mercedes light truck sales in September. You'd think all the auto makers would notice how popular diesels are with Canadians.
Porsche sports cars, where sales were up 73 per cent in September.
Buick Regal sedan sales were up 96 per cent in September. If only GM Canada had those sorts of results right across the line.
Subaru Outback and Forester, with September sales up 25.2 per cent and 22.3 per cent, respectively.
Nissan Rogue crossover. With sales incentives of $4,000 or more out there, the Rogue had its best-ever September with sales up 18.1 per cent. It was a similar story for the Nissan Murano, where sales increased 107.3 per cent over September 2010.
Kia Canada. September sales were up 34.6 per cent, and on the year Kia is up 22.1 per cent. The Kia Sorento utility was up 80.1 per cent in September, with the Sportage crossover up 182 per cent and the Soul compact up 32.3 per cent.
Hyundai Auto Canada, with 33 consecutive months of year-over-year sales growth and overall sales up 9.0 per cent on the year. Hyundai Elantra compact sales are up 34.9 per cent on the year. The Elantra is taking a run at the Honda Civic for the title of Canada's best-selling car in 2011.
Ford Explorer, with sales up 21 per cent in September.