Canadian dealers retailed 125,433 new light vehicles in February, up 11.4% on a daily rate basis from the prior month and 2.3% better than year-ago’s 122,579 with the same number of selling days.
Domestic-car sales fell 8.5%, outweighing a 2.2% increase in imports, resulting in an overall drop of 5.0%. Two months of losses puts Canadian dealers 4.0% behind for the year with 67,040 deliveries.
Honda remained in the No.1 spot in February, with a slight 0.9% increase to 5,262 units with gains by the Fit (+89.7%) and Acura ILX (+25.0%). Toyota beat General Motors to second place by just a few hundred units despite a 7.5% slip. The Toyota Prius finally saw a year-over-year gain in February, up 54.7% after a three-month streak of declines. For the seventh month in a row, Porsche posted incredible gains in this segment, soaring 196.4% with increased 911 and Boxster sales.
Light-truck sales increased 5.6% above year-ago to 89,610 units from 84,852. The Detroit Three automakers accounted for a 53.1% market share of light trucks sold in February, with FCA at the top with a 0.6% decline for the second month in a row. Ford was 1.5% below last year while GM, in third place, grew 7.4% with increased sales of the Chevrolet Bolt, Express and Suburban. Volkswagen (+144.7%) more than doubled its sales with the new domestically built Atlas and Tiguan.
LV sales started the year strong with a two-month year-to-date total of 242,743, 4.1% above like-2017’s 233,223. Despite slowdowns in cars (-12.6%) and light trucks (-0.6%) in February, FCA grabbed the top spot in Canadian new light-vehicle sales for the second consecutive month.
