Auto Sales Stay Hot In April; Honda And Nissan Break Records

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

America's love of trucks and SUVs helped push most automakers to healthy sales gains last month as Honda and Nissan reported best-ever April sales. Ford posted record SUV sales, and Toyota broke a record for SUV and truck sales.

Honda led major automakers with a 14.4% sales increase as both its cars and SUVs sold well. Nissan's sales rose 12.8%. Fiat Chrysler was up 6% on record Jeep sales, and Ford rode an April record for SUV sales to a 4% increase. Toyota sales rose 3.8% largely because of the RAV4 small SUV, which broke a monthly record with sales up nearly 32%.

General Motors, Volkswagen and Hyundai were the only major automakers to report sales declines. GM blamed its 3.5% drop on a strategy of cutting low-profit sales to rental car companies. VW sales fell almost 10% as its emissions-cheating scandal continued. Hyundai sales were off 8.5% from a record April last year.

Ford Motor Co. said it sold more than 65,000 SUVs, the best April in company history, led by the Explorer, with a 22% increase. At Nissan Motor Co., cars and SUVs pushed sales up. Fiat Chrysler was led by a 17% increase in sales of Jeep SUVs. It was FCA US LLC's best April since 2005.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-auto-sales-20160503-story.html

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America's Auto Sales Boom May Finally Be Over

by Reuters MAY 3, 2016, 1:07 PM EDT

U.S. auto sales were on course to reach a new high for the month of April on Tuesday, but shares were pressured on concerns the cyclical industry may be hitting a peak and luxury sedan sales were slowing.

-CLIP
Many Wall Street analysts say the U.S. auto market is close to a cyclical peak and will begin to weaken. The overall decline in GM’s U.S. sales for April reinforced that view, although GM said retail sales to individual customers rose 3% in April, while volume fleet sales fell.


GM’s monthly sales dropped 3.5%, more than analysts expected, but the company said it is cutting incentives that sap the bottom line, and that sales of pickup trucks remained strong.

“SUVs and crossovers continue to drive the industry,” said Tom Libby, an analyst with IHS Automotive. “Small mainstream crossovers such as the [Honda] CR-V and [Ford] Escape are the most popular vehicles.”

Several automakers said consumer demand remained strong. Ford said it posted its best retail sales for April in a decade, and Honda HMC -1.29% , which does little business in fleet sales, had its best April ever.

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http://fortune.com/2016/05/03/america-auto-sales-peak/