January 2017 auto sales report shows Toyota had an 11 percent drop while Honda Motor Co. Ltd. and Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. both had an increase of 6 percent. The trend shows crossovers and SUVs have taken over the car ranges.
According to the report of Nasdaq, Toyota's January U.S. auto sales showed an unexpected a drop of 11 percent. This put the automaker behind its competitors who have reported an increase in sales.
On the other hand, the sales reports of Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. and Honda Motor Co. Ltd. both reflected an increase of 6 percent. The increase also pulled up its stocks with 0.8 percent for the latter and 0.5 percent for Nissan.
In another report, Michelle Krebs, an analyst from autotrader.com, unveiled the strategy that pulled up the sales of Nissan. The analyst said that Nissan made the aggressive adjustment to give discounts last month which led to the sales increase. The Rogue crossover is reportedly the main contributor of the sale increase which sold 28,760 units, outsmarting Nissan's best-selling Altima sedan, USA Today reported.
On the contrary, Toyota did not make the necessary adjustment which resulted to the underperformance in sales. The analyst noted that historically, Toyota does not make such adjustment efforts in January.
Michelle Krebs further noted that the low gas prices last year pushed the clients to settle with crossovers, SUVs and pickup trucks, which is why Nissan was able to take advantage of the trend. Unfortunately, Toyota depended heavily on their car ranges which made the automaker suffered the losses in sales.
Moving forward, various analysts gave out their brave forecast for this year's sales for the overall industry. Edmunds.com foresees the sales in January will drop by 0.7 percent. Similarly, ALG, the subsidiary of TrueCar, projects a 1.5 percent decrease in sales. On the other hand, Kelley Blue Book sees a bigger drop of 2.7 percent.
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