April Sales NumbersAnalyst says April an ugly month for auto sales
05/01/07, 12:15pm, EDT
A leading auto analyst said that he expects April auto sales hit an 18 month low, Reuters reported. Lehman Brothers analyst Brian Johnson wrote in a research note that higher interest rates, declines in housing, dropping consumer confidence and a general economy slowing combined with fewer industry wide incentives led to an overall decline in sales.
Johnson told the news agency he expects to see sales declines between 6-7% for the domestic automakers. Ford is expected to have suffered the most, with a double digit decline in sales. Johnson also expects Honda and Nissan to post sales declines with Toyota posting only mildly higher sales.
Goldman Sachs analyst Robert Barry agreed with the assessment, saying automakers were hit by "lower fleet sales, a poor product cadence at Ford and very difficult car comparisons for Chrysler."
The automakers will release sales results later today.
05/01/07, 12:52pm, EDT
Posted below the jump are the April sales numbers for the major European, American and Japanese automakers. It will be updated as each company reports.
General Motors: Down 9 Percent
GM saw retail sales increase by nearly 4 percent for April but it couldn't offset a decline of 9 percent overall, Marketwatch.com reported. GM said car sales declined by 10 percent and truck sales were down 9 percent. The automaker said it had cut fleet sales by more than a third during the April selling period which contributed to the sales decline.
Ford: Down 13 Percent
Ford saw car sales slump 23.6 percent with truck sales declined 5.8 percent. Ford's retail sales were off 17 percent and fleet sales were also down 5 percent. Analysts expected a decline of more than 20% due to fewer selling days marketwatch.com reported
Chrysler Group: Up 1.6 Percent
Marketwatch.com reported the Chrysler Group saw car sales fall 20 percent in April but an 11 percent upswing truck sales allowed it to post a small gain for the month. Chrysler was running a tremendous amount of advertising and incentives on its Dodge Trucks this month, call it Truck Month at your local Dodge dealer. Minivan sales were also up for Chrysler with the Town and Country posting a 24 percent sales increase.
Toyota USA: Down 4.3 Percent
Marketwatch.com reported Toyota posted a sales decline of nearly 10,000 units compared to this time last year, which Toyota blames on two fewer selling days in April. They said that had they had those extra days, they would have increased sales by 3.7 percent.
Honda USA: Down 9.1 percent
Honda posted weaker sales for both its car and truck divisions in the April selling period marketwatch.com reported. Car sales were down 14.1 percent and truck sales were down 2.6 percent. Acura sales fell about 15 percent according to Honda's press release.
Nissan: Down 18 percent
Nissan reported perhaps the worst numbers of any automaker in April with total sales down 18 percent, marketwatch.com reported. The Nissan brand posted a 21 percent sales decline, while Infinity posted a 3.4 percent sales increase compared to April of last year.
BMW: Up 0.5 percent
BMW posted month to month and year to date sales that surpassed both measures at this time in 2006. The sales increases were based on BMW car sales increasing 10.1 percent while SUV sales decreased by 26.4 percent according to the BMW press release.
Mini Cooper: Up 2.1 percent
The Mini division of BMW reported results which bested last April's sales numbers however the brand is still down more than 10 percent when comparing the number of cars sold so far to date between 2007 and 2006
Mercedes: Down 1.8 percent
Mercedes posted slightly lower sales for April when compared to April of last year, but also posted its best year to date sales numbers ever for April. The sales increase seems to be primarily based on the strength the new GL SUV's sales which were up more than 200 percent.
Audi: Up 9.4 percent
Audi's sales increased this April by almost a thousand cars when compared to last April and the company's press release stated the brand was on track for a record year. Audi saw significant sales gains from both its A4/S4 and its TT line of sports cars.
Volkswagen: Down 7 percent
Volkswagen Eos had strong sales this April but it couldn't make up for the large decreases in sales of the rest of the VW range. The Touareg, Passat, and Jetta all posted significantly lower sales this April when compared to last April.
Hyundai: Down 4.6 percent
Hyundai announced sales in the US declined in April, but sighted positives such as increasing sales of the new Sante Fe SUV, marketwatch.com reported.