Cain's Segments: Entry Luxury Sport Sedans – February 2015 YTD

Trivia time: which cars combined to sell less than half as often in the United States in the first two months of 2015 as the BMW 3-Series and its 4-Series two-door (and four-door) offshoot?

The Audi A4 and Cadillac ATS. Or a number of other pairings listed in the chart below. Take your pick.

The BMW’s dominance in this executive saloon slash entry-level luxury slash sports sedan slash compact premium segment is long heralded. In January and February, 3-Series/4-Series sales grew at a faster rate than its category. The aging Audi A4 and the oft-ignored Cadillac ATS, among others, suffered notable slowdowns.

Without resorting to including every possible competitor under the sun – Accord V6! Golf GTI! – simply because those are the cars internet commenters say they’d prefer, we have made a conscious attempt to showcase manufacturer-supplied U.S. sales figures in an exhaustive fashion below. Rather than simply displaying the Acura TLX, for example, there’s a line which shows the full sales impact of the TLX and its predecessor duo.

Since the sales figures for the class leader, BMW’s 3-Series, aren’t broken down by bodystyle or even by 3er and 4er ( as they are in Canada), it seems only fair to showcase the Audi, Infiniti, and Lexus product lines similarly. Mercedes-Benz USA’s numbers for the C-Class are similarly confined. This isn’t an abnormal practice, but don’t confuse our attempts to break out as many figures as possible in as many ways as possible with an attempt to display 3-Series and C-Class figures in a restrained fashion.

Regardless, isn’t it nice to see not just Volvo 60-Series sales data, but S60 and V60 figures, too? And not just the V60, but the V60 Cross Country? Good on Volvo for oversharing.

We left out the true entry-level premium brand cars like Audi’s A3, the BMW 2-Series, and Mercedes-Benz’s CLA; Buick’s Regal (down 32% to 2481 year-to-date), as well.

As for the numbers as they stand through the two lowest-volume auto sales months of the year, Mercedes-Benz’s new C-Class is the real mover and shaker. Sales are up 17% compared with the same period one year ago, but that actually translates to an 8% loss compared with the first two months of 2013, when the C-Class was easily outselling the BMW 3-Series.

After a period of great acceptance at the end of 2013, the Infiniti Q50 – which generated 10,459 sales in the final two months of 2013 – has averaged only 3100 monthly sales since. Hindered by the more affordable Q40, formerly the G sedan? One would imagine.

Cadillac ATS sales have decreased on a year-over-year basis in ten consecutive months and in 13 of the last 14 months.

2014 was the best year since 2007 for the Lexus IS. With the RC stealing some of the limelight, it might be difficult for the IS to top last year’s 51,358-unit performance.

Audi’s A4/A5 line is ancient, but keep the A3 in mind: total Audi car sales are up 5.3% this year despite A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, R8, and TT declines thanks to the A3’s 4099 extra sales compared with the first two months of 2014.

Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures.