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Car sales decline for second month
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Posted on Sep 04 2005
For the second consecutive month, auto sales significantly dropped in August compared to their 2004 counterpart, with almost all auto brands—even Toyota—posting lower sales.
The CNMI’s auto dealers only sold 114 new cars last month, 58 units less than the 172 cars sold in August 2004. The sales turnout equated to a decline of 33.72 percent.
Only Hyundai, Chevrolet and Nissan’s sales increased last month. Triple J Motors, Microl Corp., and Joeten Motors sell those brands, respectively.
Triple J sold 12 Hyundai brands for a 200-percent improvement compared to the only four units it sold in August 2004. The rest of Triple J’s auto brands—Mazda, Isuzu, Suzuki and the popular Mitsubishi—suffered lower sales.
Triple J only sold one Mitsubishi unit last August, nose-diving by 88.89 percent from August 2004’s nine units sold. In all, Triple J still suffered a 55-percent drop in sales, selling only 18 units compared to last year’s same period, which posted 40 units in sales.
Joeten Motors’ Nissan sold 21 units last month, slightly topping last year’s sales of 20 units. But the 5-percent growth posted by Nissan failed to pull up the dealer’s total auto sales, which dropped by 54.17 percent.
Joeten sold only 33 units in August, 39 units less than the 72 units sold in August last year. Ford, Honda and Kia sold only five, three, and four units, respectively, failing to equal August 2004’s sales of 15, 26 and 11 units.
Of the local auto dealers, only Microl Corp., Toyota’s exclusive dealer, posted growth in sales, albeit slight. Although Toyota’s sales dropped by 8.33 percent in August, the total car units sold remained considerably high at 55, only five units less than August 2004’s sales. Coupled with Chevrolet’s sales improvement by selling eight units, Microl enjoyed a 5 percent growth in total sales last month.
Despite the overall decline in the two previous month’s auto sales, though, total sales from January to August still surpassed sales figures during the same period last year. For that period in 2005, total sales reached 1,090—4.11 percent higher than 2004’s 1,047.
