LMC’s outlook for US Light Vehicle sales in 2021 has been upgraded again, to 16.0 million units, an increase of 11% from 2020. Retail sales are projected to grow by 9% and fleet by more than 20% from 2020. Click to Enlarge.
Blame the weather since US light vehicle sales dropped to 1.18 million in February, according LMC Automotive, an automotive global forecasting consultancy. The -3% Year-over-Y decline in LMC’s view was caused by two fewer selling days this year, as well as abnormally cold weather and winter storms across many key markets. Any way you look at it, the selling-day adjusted sales volume was still down by -5.5% YoY. The annualized rate dropped to 15.7 million units, down from 16.6 mn units in January.
Compact and mid-size SUVs performed better than large pickups. They were the two most popular segments, which appears the long-term trend with mid-size SUVs gaining 0.9 percentage points of share from February 2020. Only Compact Premium SUVs grew more, up by 1.2 pp, likely from new product launches. Not surprisingly, mid-size Cars lost 2.5 pp of share from a year ago, more than any other segment. Here LMC hedges, “although consumers have been moving away from cars, lower fleet volume also hurt the segment significantly. While six segments sold more than 100,000 units last February, only four reached the threshold this year – Compact SUV, Mid-size SUV, Large Pickup and Small SUV. Combined, they accounted for 57% of total sales.” Continue reading
Volvo Cars Posts a +29% Global Sales Increase in 2021
In February 2021, the Volvo XC40 was the top-selling model, with sales of 15,818 cars (2020: 10,266), followed by XC60 at 14,463 cars (9,774) and XC90 at 6,808 cars (4,852).
Volvo Cars had good global sales in February, after the Chinese company posted 29.1% growth for the first two months of the year compared with the same period last year. Total sales amounted to 110,383 cars, as the US, Europe and China reported increases. The main factor was an ongoing recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic in China compared to last year, a solid performance in the US and increased sales in Sweden, said Volvo.
In China, Volvo Cars sold 29,243 cars in the first two months of the year, up 160.6% year-on-year, as the company managed to more than recover lost sales due to Covid-19 shutdowns last year. For the month of February, Volvo Cars sold a total of 50,795 cars, up 27.8% compared with the same month last year, and the company’s best February sales performance ever. Continue reading →