Chart Of The Day: U.S. Midsize Car Market Faltering, Leaders Earning Greater Market Share

by Timothy Cain

Published: June 6th, 2015

chart of the day u s midsize car market faltering leaders earning greater market

Through the first five months of 2015, the Toyota Camry opened up a lead of nearly 36,000 units over the Nissan Altima in the race to end the year as America’s best-selling midsize car.

Aside from popularity, the Camry and Altima – as well as nearly every intermediate car on the market – share another factor in common: their sales are declining.

Year-over-year, U.S. sales of midsize cars are down nearly 4% so far for 2015. The Chrysler 200’s 133% year-over-year increase (and FCA’s 22% overall midsize improvement) stands out, not just in the category, but among the five leaders. Each of the four better-selling cars in the group are sliding, from the Camry’s 2% drop to the Altima’s 5% decline, the Accord’s 16% plunge, and the Fusion’s 7% decrease.

The second-ranked Altima is now 14,344 sales ahead of the third-ranked Accord, causing us to wonder if the real race is for third spot, as the above chart indicates. The Ford Fusion trails the Accord by only 520 units but has been outsold by the Honda in each of the last two months.

The Altima last outsold the Accord on a calendar year basis in 2011. If the current pace holds, 2015 will be the Camry’s 14th consecutive year atop the leaderboard. The five best-selling midsize cars in America accounted for 69% of the category’s sales through the first five months of 2014; 67% so far this year.

Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures. Follow on Twitter @goodcarbadcar and on Facebook.

#AutoSales #ChartOfTheDay #May2015Sales #MidsizeCars #SalesCharts #ToyotaCamry #U.S.AutoSales

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4 of 49 comments

Sportyaccordy on Jun 07, 2015

$18K Altimas and $20K Accords... in this country of "bigger is better at all costs" Im surprised compacts are still so popular

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- Bumpy ii on Jun 07, 2015
  
  The circumstances which produce $18k Altimas and $20k Accords also produce $12k Sentras and $14k Civics. There is always a cheaper option.
  
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- Gtem on Jun 07, 2015
  
  @bumpy ii I've never seen a $14k Civic new, if I did I would have bought it! I became painfully aware of their resale value when I bought my 2012 as a low mileage 1 year old used car. $14,995, it was the cheapest '12 Civic LX in a 250 mile radius of where I was at the time (Central NY). But having paid it forward, I now get to enjoy that continued high resale myself. Lowest I've seen Sentras is about $13,5 new, for the most basic model with a 6spd stick shift. Kind of tempting actually, Nissan gets it right and packages cruise control as a standard feature on the lowest level manual car. Are you listening Hyundai, Kia, and Toyota?
  
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TMA1 on Jun 08, 2015

Great, more SUVs/CUVs I won't be able to see around.

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