Canadian dealer sales of new light vehicles reached record territory for the ninth consecutive month in September, bettering the odds deliveries for the year will hit a new high of 1.9-2.0 million units for the year.
Dealers sold a benchmark 173,874 LVs in September, at a rate of 6,955 on each of 25 selling days, beating the 6,990 units sold over a 24-day period September a year ago, when a then-record 167,765 cars and light trucks were delivered.
September was the latest in a string of monthly sales records that began in March at 159,840 units and crested at 197,709 in May, traditionally among the industry’s most robust selling periods.
If sales through the remainder of the year continue at September’s daily rate, automakers could hit the 2.0 million barrier for the first time. However, volume historically tends to slacken in the final months of the year, making it more likely dealers will close the books on 2015 at about 1.9 million vehicles, a level achievable if fourth-quarter monthly volumes show even modest increases over year-ago.
In any event, it is all but assured that Canadian LV sales will close out 2015 ahead of the record 1,846,890 units posted in 2014.
As they have all year, light trucks again were the driving force in securing the September sales pennant, thanks to a record 111,221 deliveries that bested the old September peak of 102,023 set year last year by 5.7%.
Indeed, record sales of F-Series trucks helped push Ford to its best-ever overall September tally in history and put it back into the top spot in the LV market for the month, while archrival Fiat Chrysler fell to third place behind a surging General Motors.
However, Chrysler, with 226,235 LV sales, held on to the top spot for the year, besting Ford’s 213,098 January-September LV tally and GM’s 119,664 vehicles.
Industry car sales, on the other hand, remained weak.
At 62,653 units, they trailed prior-year’s 66,742 deliveries by 9.9% to rank only 23rd in 30 years. September car sales peaked in 1986 at 86,273 units.
