The light vehicle market enjoyed another strong month of sales, this time for June 2023; DesRosiers Automotive Consultants (DAC) estimated the number of units sold to be 161,901 — an increase of 12.6% from the same month last year.
“The strong June means that we have now had eight consecutive months of year-over-year sales gains, with double-digit percentage increases in the last two months,” said Andrew King, Managing Partner of DAC, in a statement. He added that the industry seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) recovered to 1.64 million in June, which is the highest level DAC has observed since February.
As for year-to-date sales, DAC said the market reached an estimated 813,000 units. That means it’s up 7.6% above the 756,000 units sold during the first six months of 2022. “However, to put things in context,” DAC noted, “the first half sales in 2018 were 1.04 million units — so there is clearly a long way to go.”
Still, there are a few noteworthy performances from the first half of the year: General Motors led the market during this period thanks to 127,561 units sold (up 15.7% from the same period last year). Mitsubishi saw sales rise 42.4%, while Maserati, Land Rover, and Jaguar all experienced strong first-half gains thanks to sales increases of 65.5%, 44.5% and 30.3%, respectively.
And in bounding back, Volkswagen managed a sales gain of 18.9% in 2023 to reveal some real momentum in the second quarter of 2023.
