By the Numbers - September 2008: Nobody Wins Edition
by Chris Shunk on Oct 1st 2008 at 4:28PM 
We're not waiting for Suzuki to reveal its September 2008 sales results any longer, as it is highly unlikely that the little Japanese brand will arise as the only brand/automaker to post positive numbers this month. Take a good look below, as it's the first time since we started publishing sales data back in mid-2006 that every single brand and automaker is in the red. It doesn't matter how you slice it, whether you look at the change in volume from Sept. 2007 to Sept. 2008 or if you consider the change in the Daily Sales Rate. Everyone is down.For the record, we suppose Audi is this month's Biggest Winner with a sales drop of just 5.4%, while HUMMER is again our Biggest Loser with a 54.8% fall in sales. You can peruse the rest of the carnage below for yourself.
| BY THE NUMBERS - September 2008 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brand | Vol. % Change | Total Sales 9/08 | Total Sales 9/07 | DSR % Change | Daily Avg. 9/08 | Daily Avg. 9/07 |
| Acura |
-30.4% |
9,997 | 14,369 | -27.5% | 417 | 515 |
| Audi | -5.4% | 7,584 | 8,020 | -1.5% | 316 | 321 |
| BMW | -29.5% | 14,744 | 20,901 | -26.5% | 614 | 836 |
| Buick | -20.5% | 14,121 | 17,754 | -17.1% | 588 | 710 |
| Cadillac | -39.1% | 12,432 | 20,398 | -36.5 | 518 | 816 |
| Chevrolet | -11.2% | 172,803 | 194,637 | -7.5% | 7,200 | 7,785 |
| Chrysler | -39.6% | 23,346 | 38,668 | -37.1% | 973 | 1,547 |
| Dodge | -25.2% | 62,572 | 83,671 | -22.1% | 2,607 | 3,347 |
| Ford | -33.8% | 102,685 | 155,037 | -31% | 4,279 | 6,201 |
| GMC | -12.8% | 39,029 | 44,754 | -9.2% | 1,626 | 1,790 |
| Honda | -23.2% | 86,629 | 112,831 | -20% | 3,610 | 4,513 |
| HUMMER | -54.8% | 2,298 | 5,080 | -52.9% | 96 | 203 |
| Hyundai | -25.4% | 24,765 | 33,214 | -22.3% | 1,032 | 1,329 |
| Infiniti | -24.1% | 7,779 | 10,250 | -20.9% | 324 | 410 |
| Jeep | -42.8% | 21,431 | 37,460 | -40.4% | 893 | 1,498 |
| Kia | -27.8% | 17,383 | 24,087 | -24.8% | 724 | 963 |
| Lexus | -36.1% | 16,045 | 25,113 | -33.4 | 669 | 1,005 |
| Lincoln | -22.5% | 7,571 | 9,764 | -19.2% | 315 | 391 |
| Mazda | -35.6% | 16,169 | 25,098 | -32.9% | 674 | 1,004 |
| Mercedes-Benz | -16.4% | 18,779 | 22,459 | -12.9% | 782 | 898 |
| Mercury | -43.2% | 6,478 | 11,403 | -40.1% | 270 | 456 |
| MINI | -6.7% | 3,762 | 4,031 | -2.8% | 157 | 161 |
| Mitsubishi | -39% | 7,378 | 12,102 | -36.5% | 307 | 484 |
| Nissan | -38.4% | 51,786 | 84,019 | -35.8% | 2,158 | 3,361 |
| Pontiac | -26.7% | 23,324 | 31,817 | -23.6% | 972 | 1,273 |
| Porsche | -44.8% | 1,458 | 2,641 | -42.5% | 61 | 106 |
| Saab | -27.2% | 1,765 | 2,424 | -24.2% | 74 | 97 |
| Saturn | -10.8% | 18,528 | 20,776 | -7.1% | 772 | 831 |
| Subaru | -11.9% | 14,491 | 16,457 | -8.3% | 604 | 658 |
| Suzuki | N/A | |||||
| Toyota | -31.8% | 128,215 | 187,929 | -28.9% | 5,342 | 7,517 |
| Volkswagen | -9.4% | 17,109 | 18,891 | -5.7% | 713 | 756 |
| Volvo | -51.8% | 4,054 | 8,408 | -49.8% | 169 | 336 |
| COMPANIES | ||||||
| BMW Group | -25.8% |
18,506 |
24,932 |
-22.7% |
771 |
997 |
| Chrysler LLC | -32.8% | 107,349 | 159,799 | -30% | 4,473 | 6,392 |
| FoMoCo | -34.6% | 120,788 | 184,612 | -31.8% | 5,033 | 7,384 |
| General Motors | -15.8% | 284,300 | 337,640 | -12.3% | 11,846 | 13,506 |
| Honda America | -24% |
96,626 |
127,200 |
-20.9% |
4,026 |
5,088 |
| Nissan NA | -36.8% | 59,565 | 94,269 | -34.2% | 2,482 | 3,771 |
| Toyota Mo Co | -32.3% |
144,260 | 213,042 | -29.5% | 6,011 | 8,522 |
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Hike15 4:32PM (10/01/2008)
that hurts to look at
i hope it picks up soon...even though i doubt it
Reply
Ayatollah Rodriguez 5:02PM (10/01/2008)
Yeah the numbers are ugly…but they are also meaningless. We need to see a breackdown by MODELS. So Chevy is down, but what does that mean? These numbers are not telling us what is selling and what isn’t. What I want to know is how well is Malibu selling compared to Silverado.
cFoo 5:35PM (10/01/2008)
You can't feel sorry for any of them. In some cases, it's their own doing. Just look at Acura and its 08/09 lineup. I wouldn't be caught dead in the new TL. The numbers don't lie Acura. You're "Advancing" back to the ice age.
3seriesisking 6:15PM (10/01/2008)
CFOO, I hate to tell you but when the car companies hurt, we as consumers are the one's who end up feeling the brunt of the damage. So maybe you shouldn't feel sorry for the companies themselves but you might feel a little bad about the numbers above being a sign of the struggling economy and higher prices (especially for imports) in the near future.
Judy Zik 7:47PM (10/01/2008)
Pretty easy to find the answers Ayatollah...
http://www.gm.com/corporate/investor_information/sales_prod/
GM's car business was hurting. Aveo and Cobalt down. When you factor in that they were running an Employee Pricing for Everyone Deal it's not good. The big bright spots in the sea of red was the Malibu that had a 68% sales increase over the year before (but I think this month last year was the ramp up month to the new model so that could be a bit misleading) and the Impala that posted a 17% increase.
John 4:35PM (10/01/2008)
Wow, A bloodbath for sure.
Between the tight credit market and people just holding back because of uncertainty, those numbers are awful.
Reply
Kumar 5:44PM (10/01/2008)
Don't forget to add to the mix people that may be reconsidering how often they need to replace their vehicle. I thought I read somewhere that over the past 10-15 years it moved from 8 years down to every 3-5 years for replacing.
The pressure had been to replace more often of late in order to spur sales, but hopefully people have wised up (or have been forced to after being upside down a few times on car purchases/tradeins ;)
Sean 4:37PM (10/01/2008)
Wow.
I expected most people to be down as usual but... EVERY one is down? Kinda depressing.
I do laugh at Hummer being down 50% AGAIN. What is this, 3 or 4 months straight of 50% down?
Reply
Swede 4:48PM (10/01/2008)
Them and Volvo
benzaholic 5:38PM (10/01/2008)
Remember that's not compounded reductions (1/2 of 1/2 of 1/2...), it's consistently 50%+ less each month than were sold the same month last year.
It just means this is a change Hummer can believe in. ;-)
Erik Tomlinson 2:02AM (10/02/2008)
The Volvo number makes me sad, but I guess that's why their CEO switched a little while back. I am a big Volvo fan, and just bought a used S60 a few months ago.
But jeeze guys. I can't even BUY a manual transmission in the new S60 at any price, and the Canadian C30 is 40% more expensive than the American one! No wonder they're not moving any product.
Territorious 4:37PM (10/01/2008)
The only silver lining I can see in this is for GM. In comparison to the rest of the automakers it seems they are managing to maintain business better than everyone else. Let's hope they can continue and that the markets recover.
Rough times.....
Reply
anti-believer 4:48PM (10/01/2008)
How is GM maintaining better than others when their asking for bailout from the government????
You make no damn sense.
The Luigiian 5:01PM (10/01/2008)
Territorious, I too am impressed by GM's ability to keep market share.
I am also surprised at Toyota's 36% loss.
Man, these times keep on a'changin'.
Territorious 5:02PM (10/01/2008)
anti-believer,
Do you bother reading articles and digesting their content before posting? In a strictly number game, by sales, GM was hurt far less than other automakers in this time frame. This has nothing to do with any bail-outs as you put it. Why do you feel the need to link these 2 things together all of sudden? I never said GM was on cloud nine, rolling in the dough.....
Get clue and read things before going off the deep end. The point is everyone is down but it looks like GM did something right (aka Employee Pricing and better products finally) to keep them from dropping as low as the rest.
The Luigiian 5:03PM (10/01/2008)
Edit: Wait, I'm sorry, that was Nissan.
OK, I'm impressed by Nissan's losses. Sorry Ghosn, guess your days of greatness are over.
Ayatollah Rodriguez 5:19PM (10/01/2008)
Dude sales mean nothing. Margin matters. GM sells A LOT, but at a heavy discount. So units may seem good but margin per vehicles is tiny or non existent. BMW on the other hand sells little but makes probably 6-7 K from each vehicle.
Frank 5:37PM (10/01/2008)
Gm has no silver lining, they are giving incentives to make their numbers look good - market share over profit at this point. Not a bad strategy to get people into your cars - not a profitable way to run a business though ... time will tell...
usually subaru bucks the trendl though its surprising it didnt do better
Tagg 7:34PM (10/01/2008)
You have to remember GM ran a "Employe Pricing for Everyone" incentive campaign the last 2 months. They were the only ones to offer that high of an incentive and for the first time Ford and Chrysler (not 100% sure on Chrylser) didn't join them.
If anything it shows GM is actually losing it influence in the market because it was GM that started the 0% financing that everyone joined in on. They were also the company that started the employee pricing plans as well so I would have to respectfully disagree that their is a silver lining. If anything they could have really accelerated their cash burn rate without gaining any real sales advantage.
Randy 11:26PM (10/01/2008)
@anti-believer
The 25 billion is for 3 automakers
For the advancement of alternate energy automobiles
It's a LOAN not a bailout
And it will ultimately reduce the U.S. reliance on foreign energy sources.
In 5 years you'll be thanking that loan for providing a vehicle that doesn't need gas and will continue to work if the enemy countries we buy fuel from feel don't feel like selling it to us one day!
I think it's much better spent than 10 billion a month on Iraq! Hey here's an idea. Bring our troops home two and half months early and we won't miss the 25 billion and maybe save some American lives and Iraqi lives for that matter!
Uneducated commenting really bugs me! REALLY BUGS ME!!!