2005 February Sales #@%*
Mitsubishi! > Cars > Sales > USA > 2005 > March Sales
"Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc., (MMNA) today reported March 2005 U.S. sales of 14,776 units -- an 18 percent increase from February's sales volume," according to MMC's PR. Partly because of strong seasonality in auto sales, standard practice is to compare sales with that for same month of previous year but Mitsubishi does not seem to want to do it for obvious reasons. (In Canada where its sales increased compared to March 2004, although still at quite low levels, it compared march 2005 sales to March 2004.
Did you know that March of 2005 had 27 selling days, 3 additional days compared to that for February 2005 (24 selling days), an increase of over 12%. Could this have caused most of their increase from February 2005 to march 2005, not to mention additional incentives and promotions?
In 2004 March Mitusbishi Motors America had sold 20,416 vehicles; in March of 2005, this number was down to 14,776 - a drop of nearly 30%. SUV sales tumbled by 27 percent to 4,246 from 5,597. Car sales dropped by about 31 percent to 10,530 from 14,819 units.
Mitsubishi Motors PR Sales Figures
By models the sales figures are as follows, according to MMA's PR.
ECLIPSE COUPE 1,452ECLIPSE SPYDER 609
LANCER 3,255
LANCER EVOLUTION 312
LANCER SPORTBACK 192
GALANT 4,685
DIAMANTE 24
TOTAL CAR 10,530
OUTLANDER 1,118MONTERO SPORT 108
ENDEAVOR 2,642
MONTERO 378
TOTAL SUV 4,246
TOTAL 14,776
Even when one gives Mitsubishi benefit of doubt and makes month-over-comparison, its total car sales moved up from 9,211 units in February of 2005 to 10,530 units in march 2005, an increase of 14.3 percent. However, the number of selling days was up by 3 to 27, an increase of 12.5 percent, making this essentially a very flat month in terms of sales per selling day. Moreover Galant car sales declined in terms of units sold!
Toyota, Honda, Nissan Sales
It was a good month and quarter for major Japanese auto manufacturers. Toyota's vehicle sales were up by 12 percent to 203,223 units. Year-to-date it sold 507,236 vehicles, an increase of 11 percent over same period last year. (Figure for cars only is 116,619 and 284,338 units.) Honda was up 7 percent to 128,548 vehicles (308,182 for the quarter), and Nissan was up 13 percent to 105,804 vehicles (264,800 for the quarter.)