Fiat Chrysler sold just over 204,000 vehicles for its best May in 11 years.
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Automakers ended May with a Memorial Day weekend – which traditionally gives the industry a boost – but faced a month with one fewer weekend than the same month a year ago.
On Wall Street, GM shares lost 3.4 percent and Ford shed 2.9 percent. This total is up 0.3 percent compared with the same month in 2015.
Each month, auto sales are an early snapshot of consumer spending.
The decline was mainly due to the fact that there were two fewer selling days last month.
“We may be looking at a plateau sooner than we expected” in sales, said Jeff Schuster, senior vice president of forecasting for LMC Automotive, a research firm in Troy, Michigan.
Brinley said that economic fundamental are still strong and interest rates continue to be low.
USA analysts and company executives said they remain bullish on the sales prospects for the US market.
Mazda US sales down 4.3%.
The economy expanded modestly across most of the USA since mid-April, tightening the labor market and nudging wages higher, a Federal Reserve report showed today.
New figures show Canadian consumers lightly tapped the brakes in May, with monthly auto sales falling for the first time since December of a year ago. Ford Motor Co on Wednesday reported slight gains in May auto sales in Canada, while Honda Motor Co Ltd said sales rose 5 percent. But that couldn’t make up for a 26 percent decline in its vehicle sales.
Ford sales slipped 6 percent overall, but sales of the Ford F-Series gained 9 percent versus a year ago and Ford Escape sales were up 6 percent. Sales of the Chevrolet Silverado pickup, the company’s best-seller, dropped 13 percent.
Both General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. reported sales that fell more than analysts had estimated, while Nissan Motor Co. matched predictions with a 1% drop. Nissan brand light-truck sales set a May record, with Rogue crossover sales rising 5.9%.
GM reported that its total sales dropped 18% YoY to 240,450 vehicles in the same month.
Hyundai Motor Co showed an increase of almost 12 percent for May on the strength of SUV sales. All Ford-branded cars suffered sales declines, led by the 37.4% tumble in Taurus sales, and the 34.8% drop in Fiesta sales.
On the flip side, the analyst said FCA sales grew 9.5 percent as light truck dominance continues.
Hyundai touted “another record-setting May sales month with 71,007 units”, in a tweet. The Jeep brand logged a 14% jump to its best monthly sales ever. The company was the only major automaker in the US market for which analysts had not expected a decline.
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FCA’s Ram pickup truck sales fell 3 percent in May but are still up 8 percent for this year. The share prices of Ford Motor and General Motors profoundly reflect such investor concerns: General Motors’ shares, for instance, declined ~15 percent in value over the previous year, whereas Ford Motor’s share price slumped ~12 percent.
