Toyota Motor Company falls 16%, FoMoCo up 25%
How do you know if a recall has affected your sales? If you find yourself below the Chrysler Group in sales performance. That’s exactly what happened to Toyota Motor Company in January 2010, as the early effects of its sticking pedal recall sank sales 16 percent versus the same month last year. And the recall was only announced on January 21, directly affecting only about a third of the month’s selling days. We’ll be watching closely to see if Toyota can recover those lost sales in February, which may depend on the outcome of two Househearings scheduled to investigate how its recalls have been handled.
Ford Motor Company, meanwhile, continues to ride a wave of positive press and industry accolades to higher sales. Its group rose sales some 25 percent last month to beat all auto-making companies. Sales for the Ford brand itself rose 26 percent by volume alone. General Motors also has something to smile about, as Chevrolet roared back with sales up 36 percent and sales overall (including non-core brands that are still clearing out inventory) that jumped 14 percent.
Perhaps the single most surprising result is Kia, which for months has stood atop the sales performance charts with fellow Korean brand Hyundai and Subaru. While those two continued their winning ways, up 24 and 28 percent respectively, Kia sales remained flat. That said, there were only 24 selling days in January 2010 versus 26 in January 2009, so Kia did sell more vehicles per day in January than it did last year.
*Brands and companies are displayed in descending order according to their percentage change in volume sales. There were 24 selling days in January 2010 and 26 selling days in January 2009, so the change in monthly sales volume will be less than the change in the average daily sales rate (DSR) for each brand/company.
