The calendar helped US light vehicle sales to a nine-year record during May of 2014 as the Federal government continued to print money and hold interest rates low. Overall, the light vehicle market expanded 11.4% to 1.6 million units. The real change was in the light truck market, which grew 13.3% to 815,000 units.
In spite of the strong truck sales where the Detroit Three continue, clearly, to dominate, offshore brands took a 54.6% share of the US sales in May, up from a 53.9% share in April. In total, they sold 879,503 vehicles, an increase from 750,328 last month.
Asian brands took the biggest share of the market with 46.2%, up from 44.9% in April. They sold 743,937 vehicles, compared to 624,892 in April. Asian automakers are up 14.1% compared to last May when they occupied 45.1% of the U.S. market and sold 651,984 vehicles.
European brands at 8.4% of the market were down slightly from the 9% share they held in April. All told, they sold 135,566 vehicles, up from the 125,085 vehicles sold in April. European brands increased share 4.5% compared to May 2013 when 129,759 vehicles were sold.
The Detroit Three – Chrysler, Ford and GM – finished the month with a 45.3% share of the market with sales of 729,190 units. In April, the D3 held 46% of the market and sold 640,185 vehicles. In total, sales of domestic brands increased 10%compared to last May.
AutoData, the source of these numbers, estimates the seasonally adjusted annual rate, aka SAAR, for May was 16.77 million units compared to 15.48 million units one year ago. This is the largest SAAR since February 2007.
