Vehicle sales drop 25.3 per cent in January

Richmond Hill, Ontario – New-vehicle sales dropped by 25.3 per cent in January 2009, compared with January 2008, according to industry analyst Dennis DesRosiers.

General Motors, Ford and Chrysler reported that sales dropped by between 14.2 and 46.6 per cent. “All three of these companies are having a hard time breaking through the perception that they are in trouble, which is turning a lot of consumers away from their dealers,” DesRosiers said. “This is the problem when you lose market share for as long as the D3; the consumer starts to become wary about buying your product whether you deserve it or not, and you end up on a long slipery slope. This is the beginning of the fifteenth year for market share losses by Detroit.”

DesRosiers said that he expected a really bad first quarter and so the numbers were not entirely unexpected. “Fortunately, January is the weakest month for sales each year, so there is still time to recover some of the carnage,” he said. “For now, we are still holding to our forecast of the market being down in the 10 per cent range.”

Sales in Canada in January 2009 were: