November Sales: Toyota Up 3%; Honda Down 3%

Paul Niedermeyer
by Paul Niedermeyer

Note: These are gross monthly sales numbers; Toyota and Honda’s press releases are using Daily Selling Rate (DSR) numbers. Since there were two few selling days in November, that brings up their percentages. TTAC uses only gross monthly numbers.

Toyota and Honda are each on the three percent side of zero; one up, the other down. Toyota brand vehicles eked out a 1% gain, and Lexus a decent 14% bump, thanks to a good start from the hybrid HS. The pattern was similar at Honda, where Acura led with an 11% boost, and the Honda brand was down 5%. The details:Toyota brand passenger cars showed strength with the Camry (up 9%); the Prius (up 11%); and the Corolla (up5%). The Yaris was down 22%. The three Scions were all down, some 35% overall.

Toyota SUVs were down overall, the two bright spots being RAV4 (up 30%), and Sienna (up 28%). Toyota trucks were generally flat for the month.

Lexus sales would also have been flat but for the new hybrid HS, which sold some 1407 units to give the division a boost overall.

Toyota overall is down 23% for the year to date.

Honda sales overall showed a stronger tilt in favor of “trucks”. Car sales were down 12%, trucks up 10%.

The Honda brand was down 5%, with Fit sales off 27%. Accord was flat, but Civic sales were also off 23%. The bright spot was the CRV, up 15%, and with 14k units sold, it now is the number two Honda brand vehicle after the Accord.

Acura was up 11%. That was largely on the strong showing of the MDX, up 65%.

Honda overall is down 22% for the year to date.

Paul Niedermeyer
Paul Niedermeyer

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  • Wsn Wsn on Dec 01, 2009

    MDX up 65% 1) No wonder I see tons of MDX's on my local streets. The cash price is CND$44k now (for reference, a Honda Fit would cost CND$20k, a Lexus ES350 costs CND$42k). 2) TTAC is nowhere to do a market analysis. You would have believed that MDX would be extinct by now.

  • Thesparrow Thesparrow on Dec 01, 2009

    I've been buying Honda cars for the last 20 years and used to consider myself a fanboy, but they have lost their way bigtime in the U.S. (emphasis on BIG as in each model line has gotten too big and too generic). They have focused too much energy on the truck side of their line and left the car lineup on autopilot. This may pay small dividends in the short term, but spells trouble for a company that doesn't even sell one real truck. The one legup that they always had on the competition was BALANCE, but that is rapidly diminishing... Honda: When it comes to styling, stop listening to the soccer moms and senior citizens in your consumer clinics - they FOLLOW trends, they don't set them. You appear to be chasing customers that view a car as they would any other appliance. That will get you nowhere - those who only care about long-term reliability will go to Toyota and those looking for a low price will go for Hyundai/Kia. Real truck buyers are probably better served by Toyota or Nissan for something smaller and Ford or Chevy for full-sized. EVERY manufactuer has at least 3 flavors of CUV/SUV so that's a wash. You need to get back in touch with your core constituency of younger people and brand enthusiasts soon. It can't be more expensive to design an attractive vehicle versus something like the Crosstour (yuk)...

  • Pacificpom2 Pacificpom2 on Dec 01, 2009

    I see that Toyota's Aurion (V6 Camry) has just won "Years Best Large Car for 2009" from some Australian motoring scribe/organisation/magazine. Now when a tarted up Camry is called a large car along side the Falcon and Commodore the world is really going wheels up. Good luck to Toyota and the Altona plant. Ford/Holden, time to make the Falcon and Commodore bigger!

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