Remember when Canadians were panic buying toilet paper? In June 2020 Canada was still in the early days of lockdown – restaurants and gyms were closed, travel was non-existent, and yes, toilet paper was in short supply. However even in those grim days the Canadian light vehicle market was stronger than we saw last month. Sales for June 2022 came in at an estimated 143,773 units, down 11.5% from the same month in 2021. To put the dire situation in which the light vehicle market now finds itself in context we’ve listed the sales numbers for the past few Junes:
2018 – 200,156
2019 – 185,496
2020 – 156,327
2021 – 162,500
2022 – 143,773
Andrew King Managing Partner of DAC commented “Clearly, vehicle shortages remain severe and dominate the market environment. Indeed, last month saw the lowest June sales level since the recession year of 2009 when sales were under 140 thousand. If there is a crumb of comfort to be found in these numbers, it is that the decline in the SAAR we have seen in recent months appears to have abated – with the SAAR for June coming in at 1.45 million - slightly above the May level.”
At a corporate level the first 6 months of the year saw some notable changes in market share:
FCA saw its first half market share increase, up from 10.1% to 11.9%
Year-to-date, Ford’s market share grew from 14.0% to 15.2%, placing them as the clear market leader
Hyundai, Mitsubishi, and Mercedes also gained market share, rising 0.7, 0.3, and 0.2 percentage points respectively