Best Selling Cars Around The Globe: Puerto Ricans "no Compran Estadounidense"
After California, today we study the most popular cars in another territory of the United States: the unincorporated territory of Puerto Rico.
Couldn’t care less about what cars sell well in a Caribbean Island? Rude! But that’s ok because you can check out new car sales data for 176 additional countries and territories on my blog. Go on, you know you want to!
Back to Puerto Rico below the jump!
Check out the July 2013 Top 182 All-models and Top 28 All-brands rankings in Puerto Rico here
After two months of decline, the Puerto Rican new light vehicle market is back into positive territory in July 2013, up 2% year-on-year to 8,110 registrations, bringing the year-to-date total to 57,650 units, also up 2% on 2012.
The Toyota Corolla (7.4% share) and Yaris (6.2%) keep the lead but Kia delivers another outstanding month, #2 brand on the island for the 2nd time in a row thanks to 981 sales and 12.1% share and now #3 year-to-date. The Korean manufacturer places the Rio in third position in the models ranking at 434 units and 5.4%, up one spot on June while the Forte is down 4 to a still excellent #9 and 2.4%. The Toyota RAV4 also excels thanks to the new generation, up 4 ranks to #4 and 3.8%.
Traditionally, US models don’t sell well in Puerto Rico: luck if one manages to break into the monthly Top 10! So in this mediocre context, July is a relatively good month for American manufacturers, with 6 Yankees inside the Top 26 best-sellers this month. The Jeep Wrangler leads the way as usual at #7 (+2), followed by the Ford Fiesta, up an excellent 12 spots to the Ford Escape at #19 (+6), Chevrolet Sonic at #22 (+11), Jeep Grand Cherokee at #23 (-5) and Ford F-Series at #26 (+8). Notice also the Mitsubishi Outlander down 6 to a still very solid the Fiat 500 up an astounding 44 spots to Mazda CX-5 up 8 to #32 and the Scion tC up 34 to
Check out the July 2013 Top 182 All-models and Top 28 All-brands rankings in Puerto Rico here
That’s all for today!
Matt Gasnier, based in Sydney, Australia, runs a blog named Best Selling Cars Blog, dedicated to counting cars all over the world.
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I was in Puerto Rico once. Struck me as a happy place with smiling people. A kind of cleaned up and richer Latin America. Thanks Matt once again for the fine post.
Puerto Rico is a lovely island with nice people. I drove around it a few years ago. The roads aren't great. Once you get off the main roads, you have a lot of winding single lane roads, which can be interesting when the School Bus or Trash truck goes by. Small and Tough cars rule. Old Toyotas are rebuilt endlessly-it is kind of impressive how many are still there. Even though there is no freeze/thaw cycle, the typical road is two lanes with some holes, and oft there are drainage ditches...think an inverse speed bump. Most cars were a bit beat up, and it is NOT a high speed market. I was amazed at the guy who had a 935 styled 911-I figured the low air dam would last about 10 miles. If I lived there, I'd buy a small SUV type vehicle-something with ground clearance. The other choice, as made by many is "cheap", which is why so many swap a lovely view of San Juan for the Bronx...there isn't much money there and an industrious person will do better in NYC...no immigration hassles so most people we talked to had family in the States and in PR. I was impressed by a guy who had an early 60's Chrysler New Yorker..keeping a car in that environment is tough, between the heat, sun, and salt air. Except for those old Toyotas, most don't last very long... One huge issue about Statehood...as long as PR isn't a "State", they don't pay income tax. I wish I had that choice !