U.S. auto market is more competitive than ever

U.S. auto market is more competitive than ever

Competition at the top of the U.S. auto market has never been greater, says a recent IHS Automotive analysis. In the past 14 years, market share range among the eight largest OEMs in the U.S has dropped from nearly 26 percentage points in 2000 to just 14 points through October.

With such a large number of vehicles on the road, the number of vehicles needed to gain market share has risen. Based on the IHS Automotive projection for U.S. sales in 2015 to reach 16.7 million, to gain 1 percent share, an automaker needs to sell an additional 167,000 vehicles. In 2009, in the middle of the recession, 1 percent could be gained by selling 104,000 vehicles.

–Since no OEM wants to slip in the rankings, each is doing everything possible to retain each tenth of a point share, while opting to avoid risky product programs that could cause disruption in their product portfolio,” said IHS Automotive solutions consultant Tom Libby.