By the Numbers: 2006
As promised, we bring you to the complete, unabridged sales figures for 2006. Unlike the numbers for the month of December, we're seeing a lot of little red arrows down there. Still, many of these numbers were expected. General Motors and Ford Motor Company, for instance, were both down for the year, 8.4% and 7.57%, respectively. Toyota Motor Company, meanwhile, ended 2006 up 12.9%. We've heard those two sentences all year long, however, why should the annual numbers be any different?Nevertheless, Ford still reigns supreme as the most beloved brand of 2006 in terms of sales, racking up 2.43 mil sales last year. Chevy came in a very close second selling 2.41 million vehicles, with Toyota not far behind with 2.22 million sales.
Though HUMMER had the biggest sales increase of the year with a 24% jump thanks to the H3, our biggest mad props have to go out to Suzuki, the plucky Japanese automaker that made its goal of 100,000 unit sales in 2006 with 990 units to spare.
Biggest Winner
HUMMER
24.30% at 71,524 (2005: 56,727)Biggest Loser
Jaguar
–31.79% at 20,683 (2005: 30,424)Check out the complete list of yearly sales figures for every automaker after the jump.
BRANDS
Acura
–3.7% at 201,223 (2005: 209,610)Audi
8.5% at 90,116 (2005: 83,066)BMW
3.42% at 274,432 (2005: 266,200)Buick
–14.46% at 240,657 (2005: 282,288)Cadillac
–3.08% at 227,014 (2005: 235,002)Chevrolet
–9.23% at 2,415,428 (2005: 2,669,932)Chrysler
–7% at 604,874 (2005: 649,293)Dodge
–8% at 1,077,579 (2005: 1,179,008)Ford
–7.84% at 2,433,086 (2005: 2,648,814)GMC
–14.75% at 481,222 (2005: 566,322)Honda
4.8% at 1,308,135 (2005: 1,252,862)HUMMER
24.30% at 71,524 (2005: 56,727)Hyundai
.21% at 455,012 (2005: 455,520)Infiniti
–10.9% at 121,146 (2005: 136,401)Isuzu
.09% at 15,751 (2005: 15,787)Jaguar
–31.79% at 20,683 (2005: 30,424)Jeep
–3% at 460,052 (2005: 476,532)Kia
7% at 294,302 (2005: 275,851)Land Rover
3.8% at 47,774 (2005: 46,175)Lexus
6.8% at 322,434 (2005: 302,895)Lincoln
–1.89% at 120,476 (2005: 123,207)Mazda
4.38% at 268,786 (2005: 258,339)Mercedes
10.9% at 248,080 (2005: 224,421)Mercury
–7.4% at 180,848 (2005: 195,949)MINI
–3.72% at 39,171 (2005: 40,820)Nissan
–4.2% at 898,103 (2005: 940,269)Pontiac
–5.99% at 410,229 (2005: 437,806)Porsche
6.95% at 36,095 (2005: 33,859)Saab
–4.89% at 36,349 (2005: 38,343)Saturn
6.29% at 226,375 (2005: 213,657)Subaru
2.73% at 200,703 (2005: 196,002)Suzuki
23.4% at 100,990 (2005: 82,101)Toyota
13.8% at 2,220,090 (2005: 1,957,400)Volkswagen
5.2% at 235,140 (2005: 224,195)Volvo
–5.98% at 115,807 (2005: 123,587)TBA: Mitsubishi
COMPANIES
BMW Group
2.47% at 313,603 (2005: 307,020)Chrysler Group
–6.73% at 2,142,505 (2005: 2,304,833)Ford Motor Co
–7.57% at 2,918,674 (2005: 3,168,156)General Motors
–8.40% at 4,124,645 (2005: 4,517,730)Honda America
3.5% at 1,509,358 (2005: 1,462,472)Nissan North America
–5% at 1,019,249 (2005: 1,076,670)Toyota Motor Co.
12.9% at 2,542,524 (2005: 2,260,295)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
George1980 1:28PM (1/04/2007)
I dont think Kia can call itself the "Fastest Growing Automaker" in the world anymore.
Its now HUMMER!
Reply
beaker 1:18PM (1/04/2007)
What I'd like to see next to these numbers is amount of money earned (or lost). If your sales go down, but you make more money, is that a bad thing? Likewise, as is the trend with some US companies, if your sales go up and you're still losing money, what's the point?
Reply
ChrisL 1:40PM (1/04/2007)
I wonder how much the numbers would change for the domestics if fleet sales were taken out of the "sales" numbers. Actual sales to real people would show a more realistic way of gauging the public's purchasing habits.
Reply
Ernesto 1:46PM (1/04/2007)
Hey George1980 you're making the same mistake as some other George does. The US is not THE WORLD, mind you!
Reply
Paul 1:50PM (1/04/2007)
Um...how about mentioning where you guys got the damn stats from? Also, your math skills aren't quite up to par here. Better double check next time, Mr. Neff.
Reply
Geroge1980 1:51PM (1/04/2007)
My apologies. I agree with you. Its just that in amercia Kia keeps saying they are the fastest automaker and I guess you are correct. maybe in the world as a whole, Kia is still doing strong.
Our George days will be over in 2 years.
Reply
Ryan 1:53PM (1/04/2007)
Everytime these stats come out 7 idiots like Paul #5 say the math is wrong.
Dude, 2006 had one less selling day than 2005. so even if the numbers are the same, the percentage is higher.
Reply
rdm 1:53PM (1/04/2007)
Number 3 above is right on. I bet someone somewhere has these stats!
Reply
cg 1:56PM (1/04/2007)
Someone apparently has a broken calculator because most of the percentages are off.
Just for example:
Acura: 201223/209610 = 0.9599 which gives you a loss of 4%, not 3.7% as stated.
Almost all of them down the list are also wrong. Not far off, but still wrong.
What is your source?
Reply
cg 1:56PM (1/04/2007)
Oh and Ryan #7, these percentages are not RATES, so days of sales has nothing to do with it.
Reply
Lithous 2:05PM (1/04/2007)
"Likewise, as is the trend with some US companies, if your sales go up and you're still losing money, what's the point?"
It seems to me that as GM and Ford get their legacy costs down those more sales mean more profits in the future.
"Actual sales to real people would show a more realistic way of gauging the public's purchasing habits."
Yeah, because Microsoft and Oracle and most other companies totally disregard sales to the gov't and other like entities. They don't count at all. I agree, there are no real people doing the purchasing of fleet vehicles. Everytime a company sends a truck out to fix/install something I didn't really need it fixed or installed. They really didn't need the vehicle either. They could have just called it in and I could have fixed it.
If anything the businesses who buy fleet vehicles need those to run easily as much as you do. So it is actually a credit that many *companies* still think that it is worth buying a domestic over a foreign vehicle (even with incentives if American vehicles were as bad as most import fanboys claim then 2 or 3 transmissions or 1 engine would have deterred any company away by now) since long term value is of great concern to most companies.
But you are right, we see Toyota getting bigger and admitting problems, I think Toyota and Honda should sell to all the fleets in the country then they would run into the same problems no doubt.
Act like fleet sales don't count all you want but if America relied on Toyota and Honda for their businesses for the last 100 years then America would not have the economy it has experienced. But many don't care about the economy more than a very short intervals anyway.
Reply
Lithous 2:10PM (1/04/2007)
But I'll sit back and wait for Ryan's junior high response... Please Ryan, at least make it a senior year high school response this time, you've been on autoblog awhile, it's time to step it up a bit.
TIA
Reply
Jeff 2:15PM (1/04/2007)
I think Ford did better than it seems from just this one number. If you look at the details, (blueovalnews.com has more specifics) you can see that while their truck sales are way down (pretty much a given in this day and age), the car sales are up 5%. The fusion, milan, and especially the MKZ are doing very well, compared to last year when they were only getting their name out on the streets. The triplets sold well over 200K. The 500 and Freestyle are hurting a bit (142K vs 184K last year), but that could be because of the upcoming and much needed updates.
Reply
John P. 2:29PM (1/04/2007)
Looks to me like Ford and GM have just about hit bottom and the next few years are going to show a big turn-around. Especially considering both companies have some interesting products coming and management that seems to get it finally . My next car will be a Ford or GM for sure, haven't figured out which yet.
It takes awhile to spool up after all that SUV love-fest of the last 15 years.
Reply
Richard Warren 3:23PM (1/04/2007)
Here we go with the "fleet" question again. Fleet is legitimate business, if the domestics don't take it someone will. Get real. I guess fleets are not "people"
All imports by nameplate 7,281,536
All domestics by nameplate 8,949,364 take out Chrysler (assumed non domestic)7,266,911
Add in the imports owned by GM&Ford 7,685,287
Yep, looks like the domestics are dead, keep spreading the BS
Reply
Lithous 3:20PM (1/04/2007)
"It takes awhile to spool up after all that SUV love-fest of the last 15 years."
It is all about perception in the car industry. Toyota sells pretty close to the number of light trucks as it does passenger cars in the U.S., 944,971 vs 1,275,119 (source: http://www.toyota.com/about/news/corporate/2007/01/03-1-sales.html you'll also notice in that link that they give the year end percentage gain for just about everything but the Prius. Sure they give the December % gain and the total but they don't give the % gain from last year for the Prius, again, because it is about preception. 106K Prius look better to the eye than the % gain so that is what they show). Not to mention that the 12th most researched vehicle on KBB site was the Tahoe (http://www.autoblog.com/2007/01/03/honda-civic-tops-kbb-list-of-most-researched-vehicles-in-2006).
Reply
Marc 3:56PM (1/04/2007)
Wow, Lithous is just filled with hate today. The beginning of the month is a sad time for you, huh. BTW, Toyota's truck numbers include mid-sized trucks, CUVs and a minivan, hardly all gas guzzling pick-ups and SUVs as your post is clearly trying to allude to. Toyta figured out back in the 90's that US consumers would wise up to the ineficency of SUVs. They put out the first CUVs, and are reaping benefits from it that the big 2 are just starting to figure out.
As for the Prius, your complaint is I guess that the press release does not give the percentage increase, only listing the raw numbers. Honestly, is that the best you can come up with? In a press release, obviously not every fact is cruched and analyzed. Prius is far from the only vehicle that has only partial data listed in the text. Significant points are highlighted, and anything else can be researched. In fact, all you have do to is look down the page of Toyota's report to see all the percentages. You can find it on The Auto Channel website, since Toyota only features a press release, not the full chart, on its website. Prius is actually down less than one percent. Not bad for a car that is in its 3rd year, still sold another 100k+ for the 2nd year in a row, and is sharing its components with now 4 other Toy/Lexus engines. But that's not good enough for you , is it?
Reply
Gerry 11:45PM (1/04/2007)
Hummer?
Reply
ChrisL 3:39PM (1/04/2007)
Ok, one last word on the "fleet" comment, as a former 'purchaser' for a rental car company, I was obligated to select cars from a particular manufacturer or two. Don't you think that these corporate ties skew the figures somewhat?
Reply
Lithous 4:54PM (1/04/2007)
"Wow, Lithous is just filled with hate today."
Yes, if facts are hateful *to you* then you are correct.
"Toyota's truck numbers include mid-sized trucks, CUVs and a minivan, hardly all gas guzzling pick-ups and SUVs as your post is clearly trying to allude to."
I was clearly showing facts that Toyota itself put out. On that link they clealry lumped and called them "light trucks". Same term I used. Last I checked even minivans don't get the gas mileage cars get, btw.
"Toyta figured out back in the 90's that US consumers would wise up to the ineficency of SUVs. They put out the first CUVs, and are reaping benefits from it that the big 2 are just starting to figure out."
If they are so great and Americans apparently liked SUVs so much why didn't they create 100MPG SUVs (Tahoe size at that)? But you make it like CUV's are so much better, like they get half the MPG of SUVs or something. Give me a break. Again, the Tahoe was #12 most researched on KBB site, Americans like them and even Toyota knows that and builds some gas guzzlers. Will Toyota's pickups and large SUVs do better than GM's? We'll see, if they don't, will that make them gas guzzlers? Why didn't stellar Toyota release the Tundra as a 2008 so they can use the new MPG rules and show the world they make everything great and meet standards ahead of everyone else?
"As for the Prius, your complaint is I guess that the press release does not give the percentage increase, only listing the raw numbers. Honestly, is that the best you can come up with?"
Best I can come up with? Not really, but I never stated anything about trying to show it was the best example of anything. It is just an example. And as we see from fake stitching moans about the Aura, the little things add up and that is just one thing. I think the fact that "earth loving" Toyota sells so many light trucks is better (though not my best either, I think I have stated a ton of ideas on autoblog proving perception being way off).
Perception is so important and Toyota knows that most of any company. All the American flag waving they do even though they employ 1/3 the Americans as GM and have a lot less assembly/manufacturing plants in the U.S.
"In a press release, obviously not every fact is cruched and analyzed. Prius is far from the only vehicle that has only partial data listed in the text. Significant points are highlighted, and anything else can be researched. In fact, all you have do to is look down the page of Toyota's report to see all the percentages. You can find it on The Auto Channel website, since Toyota only features a press release, not the full chart, on its website. Prius is actually down less than one percent."
There, you nailed it right on the head. The sales are down. That is why they didn't mention the percentage.
"Not bad for a car that is in its 3rd year, still sold another 100k+ for the 2nd year in a row, and is sharing its components with now 4 other Toy/Lexus engines. But that's not good enough for you , is it?"
I guess GM selling over a million units more than Toyota in the U.S. isn't good enough for you either.
The import fanboys taught me this one... it doesn't matter how many it is the trend that is important. That is how they justify that all American cars suck, not by number sold but by the trend that their sales are falling. I guess if it is Toyota (and especially the Prius) then all that doesn't hold true. Anyway, the import fanboy statement is only true for GM and Ford, I already knew that.
Reply