Leftlane has been reporting on the seemingly endless supply of positive news coming from Hyundai and Kia as they continue to quickly grow their market share in the U.S., while at the same time former market leaders Toyota and Honda continue to tumble.
While the list of factors for and against each respective automaker continues to grow in complexity with each passing day, the news that Hyundai/Kia are expected to outsell both Toyota and Honda when May’s sales are tallied will likely simultaneously catch many off guard while others will see the swap as an inevitable change. Whatever your stance, the preliminary numbers have been crunched by TrueCar and all signs point to a new number three automaker in the U.S.: Hyundai/Kia.
As the effects of the natural disasters in Japan begin to actually catch up with the market, new car sales in the U.S. are expected to drop 3.7 percent compared to the same month last year, to just 1,060,392 vehicles sold. Put into more recent context, that even marks a significant decline compared to April of this year which showed a Seasonally Adjusted Annualized Rate (SAAR) of 13.18 million vehicles, compared to an expected SAAR of just 11.85 million in May.
But the big story comes from a mix of Asian automakers as they continue to battle for market share in the U.S. Hyundai/Kia are expected to report 115,434 unit sales, a massive 43.4 percent jump from the same month last year. While the Koreans are moving forward with a vengeance, Toyota is expected to fall back from the number three rank with just 109,416 forecast sales in May, down 32.8 percent from 2010 levels.
Honda is also suffering, expected to produce just 92,889 sales, which would mark a 25.6 percent drop from last month’s numbers and 20.7 percent lower than the same month a year ago. Chrysler is expected to produce 110,132 sales, a little over a five percent gain compared to 2010 and enough to secure the fourth most sales for a manufacturer.
General Motors and Ford will maintain their one and two ranks, with GM producing an expected 225,394 vehicle sales, while Ford will report about 188,280 vehicles sold.
Will it continue? Only time will tell how much Toyota and Honda (among other Japanese automakers) will bounce back once production capacity returns to normal, but in the meantime Hyundai/Kia and U.S. automakers will gladly continue to provide consumers with viable alternatives that continue to erode away precious market share from the Japanese automakers.
References
1.’Hyundai/Kia has third…’ view
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