Business

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Auto sales start revving

By: Murray McNeill

Posted: 03/16/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

SALES of new vehicles stalled in Manitoba in January, but an industry official says customers have since started flocking back to the dealerships.

"January and February are probably typically two of the slowest months of the year (for vehicle sales) and March is usually the month we see things perk back to life," John Carey, president of the Manitoba Motor Dealers Association and president of Focus Hyundai in Winnipeg, said Monday.

"And that's definitely been the case for us here. We've definitely seen March spring back to life and this weekend was tremendously busy. We had lots of traffic coming through our dealership."

Carey said Focus Hyundai isn't the only dealership that's seen an increase in customer traffic this month.

"Generally, optimism is quite good among all the dealerships I've spoken to."

Carey was commenting after Statistics Canada issued seasonally adjusted figures on Monday that showed new-vehicle sales were essentially flat from December to January, both in Manitoba and nationally.

It said Manitoba dealerships sold two fewer vehicles in January than in December -- 3,698 vs. 3,700 -- for a decline of 0.1 per cent. Nationally, sales were unchanged, at 128,426 units.

The StatsCan data also included raw figures that haven't been adjusted to take into account seasonal variations in selling patterns. Those numbers include a breakdown of car and truck sales, whereas the provincial seasonally adjusted ones do not.

The breakdown showed vehicles in the light truck category, which includes light- and heavy-duty trucks, vans, minivans, sport utility vehicles and buses -- were the big sellers in Manitoba in January.

Their sales were up 2.1 per cent to 1,554 units from 1,522 in January of last year, while sales of passenger cars fell by 11.5 per cent to 804 units from 908. That left combined sales down three per cent to 2,358 units from 2,430.

Carey said truck sales continued to outperform car sales in February, as well, with sales up 25 per cent compared to only six per cent for cars.

He said one of the reasons for that is the growing popularity of crossover vehicles, which fall under the category of SUVs and are a cross between an SUV and a car.

Nationally, StatsCan said lower sales of North American-built passenger cars were offset by higher sales of trucks and overseas-built passenger cars in January.

It said truck sales increased by 2.4 per cent to 65,726 -- their second straight monthly increase -- while car sales declined by 2.3 per cent to 62,700 units.

Preliminary industry data indicate the number of new motor vehicles sold increased by seven per cent in February, the agency said.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 16, 2010 B4

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