Washington Area new vehicle sales up 5.5% in 2010
New vehicle sales, all inclusive, were ahead in 2010 over 2009 by 5.5% for the ten locality region of Metropolitan Washington, captured in the WANADA Area Report from R.L. Polk. That represented a total of 213,631 new vehicles sold in the region for the year.
Total new vehicles sold in the U.S. for 2010 were 11.6 million, representing a 9.3% increase over 2009 when sales dropped to 10.6 million, the low point of the Great Recession.
New import trucks led the way to Metro Washingtons improved course in 2010, being up by a whopping 30% from 2009. Import cars, the largest category of new vehicles sold, was only up by 2.8% while domestic (Detroit 3) trucks only improved by .8%, with domestic cars down 20%.
Washingtonians continued to buy more cars than light trucks at 55% of all new vehicles sold in 2010. Nationally, cars comprise a slightly lower percentage of total sales at about 52% in 2010.
Import share, cars and light trucks, was about 73% here in 2010 and 82% with cars only. The U.S. import share of cars and light trucks was about 55% last year.
The biggest month here in 2010 was March at 20,202 new vehicles sold, with May, June and December each well north of 19,000 units. The lowest month was February at 12, 475, due in all likelihood to the blizzards of 2010.
The WANADA Area Report for all twelve months of 2010 and December 2010 YTD is available for dealer members only at www.wanada.org by logging into the member center, clicking on General Information and then Marketing and Sales Data. For any dealer member in need of log-in information, please contact the WANADA office at 202-237-7200, or e-mail info@wanada.org.
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