Canadian auto sales in October 2023 grow for the 11th month in a row, with 145,892 new registrations (+21.6%). YTD figures at 1.41 million are up 10.1% from the previous year.
Market trend and Outlook
The Canadian economy hasn’t performed well in the current year. Deloitte states: “One of the biggest surprises over the past year has been the resilience of economic growth in the face of aggressive monetary tightening. We finally saw some of the negative impact in the second quarter of this year, with real GDP falling by 0.2%. Over the near term, we expect the economy to continue to struggle in the face of high household debt, soaring interest payments, and stubbornly persistent inflation.”
The economic struggle hasn’t reflected yet in the country’s vehicle market, which in October 2023 grew for the 11th month in a row, reporting 145,892 new vehicle sales (+21.6%). YTD figures at 1.41 million are up 10.1% from the prior year.
Looking at cumulative data up to October 2023 brand-wise, the leader Toyota grows 8.8% in sales with 163,893 new registrations.
In 2nd place ranks Ford with 162,395 sales (-17.9%), followed in 3rd by Chevrolet with 113,114 units sold (+17.1%).
The Korean manufacturer Hyundai ranks in 4th, with 97,301 sales and a 1.3% in year-on-year performance.
Honda maintains 5th with 95,829 sales (+20.6%), followed by GMC at 83,264 (+15.3%), Kia at 74,263 (+31.9%), RAM with 71,341 units sold (+6.0%), Nissan with 69,931 new registrations (+15.0%) and Mazda in 10th place with 49,233 sales (+11.7%).
Looking at specific models the Ford F-series is still the best seller with a 11.5% loss in year-on year volume, followed by the Ram pick-up up 6.3%.
As one of the world’s top producers of light vehicles – 1.4 million vehicles are assembled at the Canadian plants of Stellantis, Ford, GM, Honda, and Toyota each year, supplied by nearly 700 parts suppliers – Canada’s automotive sector is heavily reliant on global supply chains.
Following significant losses borne by the global automotive industry in the wake of border closures, factory lockdowns and semiconductor chip shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada’s sector has been especially vulnerable to supply chain constraints.
Automakers have been driven to pursue leaner and more creative risk mitigation and cost-efficient strategies to bypass further disruption, including strengthening relationships or dual sourcing with suppliers to increase supply chain flexibility, diversifying markets, and building inventory.
However, these actions have not been able to fix the issues in place and the domestic market keeps decline.
Medium-Term Market Trend
Following an impressive series of 8 consecutive growth, the Canadian domestic light vehicles market in 2017 broke the 2 million units milestone, hitting the current all-time record and entering the club of the top 10 largest global vehicle industries.
However, such an outstanding level was not maintained for long. In 2019 (-3.7%) the market entered in a negative phase that has not yet come to an end. 2022 ,in fact, maintained this downfall, losing 7.6%, reaching 1.51 million sales and reporting losses in 11 out of 12 months.
This year perspectives are not good, as in 2023 the risk of an economic recession should further hit the consumer’s demand, on top of current negative impact of high inflation, raising interest rates, near doubled cost of fuel price, components shortage.
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for all Brands and top 10 Groups.
