Why there’s optimism as new vehicle sales streak ends

Canada’s run of 19 straight months of year-over-year increases in new vehicle sales came to an end in June. But industry observers at DesRosiers Automotive Consultants aren’t all that put off.

The 169,000 sales in June 2024 — dead even with the same time last year — probably could have come in higher if not for the devastating breach of CDK Global’s software, crippling dealerships from across North America from competing sales.

With dealers back online following the outage, interest rates cut and appearing to continue heading down and better OE incentives, there’s market momentum, DesRosiers’ analysis outlined. June’s seasonally adjusted annual rate came in at 1.72 million, a tick ahead of May, a “definitive positive,” said Andrew King, the consultancy’s managing partner.

“However, sales figures are still far below industry highs, with June sales exceeding 200,000 units in both 2018 and 2017,” he pointed out.

Year to date, the market is up 10.4 per cent compared to the first six months of 2023 with an estimated 924,000 vehicles sold. General Motors leads the market overall in volume with sales of close to 141,000 units during the first six months of the year. Volkswagen led the larger volume brands for percentage gain with sales up 54 per cent.

“Hopefully July will see a rebound from the software-related issues — with delayed sales being recovered quickly,” DesRosiers’ analysis said. “With interest rates starting a downward cycle and the inventory issues behind us, we will be watching closely to see how much momentum the market can hold on to as pent-up demand starts to wane.”