Detroit Losing Market Share

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

As much as managers of car companies love double digit increases such as the 22 percent overall gain in June, there is one aspect they really hate: When the market share charts come on the table. Market share measures the true performance of sales and engineering. If the damn market increases 22 percent, then your sales must increase 23 percent, just to stay ahead of the game. Managers of Detroit car companies eye these charts with trepidation.

Share Jun 12Share Jun 11ChangeShare YTD 12Share YTD 11ChangeGeneral Motors19.35%20.44%-1.09%18.09%19.92%-1.83%Ford Motor Co.16.12%18.36%-2.24%15.68%16.89%-1.21%Toyota13.83%10.53%3.30%14.39%12.83%1.55%Chrysler Group11.26%11.43%-0.17%11.47%10.10%1.36%Honda9.71%7.96%1.74%9.64%9.59%0.05%Hyundai Group8.96%9.90%-0.94%8.87%8.97%-0.09%Nissan7.18%6.83%0.34%7.94%7.97%-0.03%Volkswagen3.97%3.67%0.30%3.78%3.33%0.45%BMW Group2.16%2.55%-0.39%2.18%2.27%-0.09%Subaru2.15%1.88%0.28%2.26%2.09%0.17%Daimler AG1.98%2.17%-0.20%1.96%1.90%0.06%Mazda1.55%1.83%-0.28%1.98%1.93%0.05%Volvo Cars NA0.55%0.67%-0.12%0.48%0.57%-0.10%Mitsubishi0.42%0.79%-0.37%0.45%0.70%-0.24%Jaguar Land Rover0.36%0.43%-0.07%0.38%0.37%0.00%Porsche0.23%0.24%-0.01%0.23%0.25%-0.02%Suzuki0.18%0.22%-0.04%0.18%0.21%-0.03%Other0.02%0.02%0.00%0.02%0.02%0.00%Maserati0.02%0.02%0.00%0.02%0.02%0.00%

GM’s market share has been eroding steadily, however, the pace of the decline is not as fast as it used to be. More worrisome is Ford. Its share was slightly above 16 percent in June, and slightly below 16 percent for the first six months of the year. Chrysler’s outrageous percentage sales gains suddenly look in a different light when market share comes into play.

Why are they losing? Because the others are gaining, simple as that. Honda and especially Toyota is on a roll. Toyota and Ford will trade places if that trend continues.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

More by Bertel Schmitt

Comments
Join the conversation
3 of 37 comments
  • Bd2 Bd2 on Jul 05, 2012

    Toyota has seen the most growth for the year due to launches of new products like the Camry, ES and GS; as well as gorging on fleet sales for the 1st 5 months of the year (15% of sales went to fleet). GM and Ford should see sales growth later in the year as they launch their new models in the all-important mid-size sedan segment (with the non-Eco Malibu, XTS and ATS - GM should see a good rise in its sedan sales).

  • Zoom Zoom on Jul 05, 2012

    Why the focus on "Detroit"? Isn't "Detroit" just Ford and GM now? Does it really matter how "Detroit" does compared to everyone else? Content percentage and final assembly location is a much greater measurement of whether a company is a "Detroit" (U.S.) comapny or not. I don't know the percentages, but Ford and GM seem to be building a lot of cars in Mexico and Canada.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
Next