US car market tops 17.5 million

New vehicle sales in the US topped 17.5m last year – that’s around 17 times bigger than the Australian new car marketplace. As has been the case since 2009, new vehicle sales have trended consistently upward Stateside. Indeed, 2016 sales set a new record.

The winners were Nissan, Subaru and Honda. The Nissan Group’s (including Infiniti) annual sales rose 5.4 per cent to reach 1,564,423 vehicles. Subaru of America sold 615,132 vehicles for a 5.6 percent increase for the year.

Overall sales at Honda (including Acura) were up 3.2 percent to 1,637,942, but ‘conventional’ car sales alone at Honda were down with the growth focused on SUVs. Like Australia, this was the common overall trend in the USA — SUV and pickup sales were up across most brands.

It wasn’t all good news, however. Both General Motors (GM) and Ford showed signs of stress during 2016. GM sales for the year were down 1.3 percent, and sales of Ford branded vehicles dropped 0.4 per cent. In total the Ford Motor Company sold 2.61m vehicles of which a staggering 1.92m were pickups and SUVs.

Fiat Chrysler finished 2016 on a downward trend to end the year basically flat at 2.24m vehicles. If not for RAM and Jeep brands, 2016 would have been considerably worse as Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler and Dodge tipped off the table.

Toyota did even worse suffering a 2 per cent drop overall. Lexus slipped 3.9 per cent and Toyota branded products were down by 1.7 per cent.

According to the National Automobile Dealers Association, the US market will continue to slow slightly throughout 2017.

And thus, US new vehicle buyers don’t need to look hard to find a deal these days.

Several manufacturers have dropped financing rates to 0 per cent on popular models for as long as 72 months. Alternatively, buyers can opt for fat cash rebates.

Ford’s F-Series truck line, for the 40th straight year, was America’s best-selling vehicle in 2016. The company’s Lincoln Division did well gaining 10.4 per cent for the year, though, it accounted for only 111,724 vehicles – about equal with Jaguar Land Rover’s US market volume and slightly better than Volvo Car.

As noted above, pick-ups and SUVs are the Blue Oval’s bread and butter. The company boasts of being “America’s best-selling truck brand”, and that title truly belongs to Ford -- F-Series 1m plus sales comfortably topped a combined Chevrolet and GMC’s 940K-odd last year.

The takeaway in US pick-up sales is the strength of the mid-sized pickup segment – Chevrolet Colorado, GMC Canyon, Nissan Frontier, all-new Toyota Tacoma and all-new Honda Ridgeline all posted improved sales for 2016. Little wonder Ford is fast-tracking the Ranger…

Despite sales performance at Ford, the company claimed strong profits. Mark Fields, Ford President and CEO, announced 2016 profits of $US4.6b, which he claimed to be the second-best yearly result ever.

Field placed a bold asterisk on 2017 by saying that profits from North American operations for 2017 will remain strong but not equal with 2016.

General Motors will announce full year financial results on February 7, and although total vehicle sales in the US are down, profits have trended upward for the past three quarterly reports. GM is expected to report a profit for 2016, but it may be millions rather than billions.