April was another good month for the ‘Movers and Shakers’ of the auto industry. While April sales were technically down 84,074 units from March, the industry still managed to increase sales by 19.8% from April, 2009.

Total sales equaled 982,131 vehicles. According to Edmunds, the seasonally adjusted annual sales rate (SAAR) for the industry now stands at 11.2 million vehicles. That’s down from 11.8 million in March, but still much better than the 10.36 million tracked SAAR in February.

According to J.D. Power and Associates, 79.7% of vehicles sold in April were retail sales compared to 20.2% fleet sales. Fleet mix increased slightly for March, by a little over 1% of total sales. Industry mix favored car sales again in April: 51.5% car vs. 48.5% light-truck. The biggest vehicle segments for the month were midsized cars (254,214), crossovers (193,506), compact cars (167,040) and pickup trucks (129,603).

April’s sales performance has to do with the continuation of aggressive incentive spending. Besides Toyota’s new all time high for incentive spending, there was also a big jump made by Honda. Industry average incentive spending was estimated at about $2,800 per vehicle in April, identical to March’s high numbers but down -4.4% from this time last year, according to Truecar. Truecar says car companies spent ~$2.8 billion on incentives in April.

April sales ultimately proved to be lower than what many automotive analysts were expecting. Bloomberg estimated an 11.4 million SAAR average for April only two weeks ago, that was based off the robust sales of the first 20 days of April. Al Castignetti, VP of sales at Nissan USA, says “the final 10 days of the month were a bit slower than we experienced earlier on.�

While all important indicators point to further improvement in the auto industry, car manufactures are by no means out of the woods. With unemployment remaining at a very high 9.7% and “real� discretionary retail spending still on the decline, a difficult and long recovery for the auto industry is still expected.

Most automakers and automotive analysts kept their predicted end of the year SAAR at 11.5-12 million vehicles for  2010.

GM: Market share 18.7%/ sales up 7.2%

GM sold 183,614 vehicles in April, up 7.2% from last year, but down 2.3% from March, 2010

GM’s profitable truck nameplates were up 10.9% for the month, but car sales were barely up (+2.0%)

Fleet mix stood at 60.5% truck vs. 39.5% car for April. This is about the same vehicle mix from March, but significantly higher than GM’s tracked mix in 2009. That could probably be explained by the loss of the car dependent brands of Saturn, Saab and Pontiac

Chevy made up about 74% of GM’s total sales for the month

The Camaro is still winning the muscle car wars w/ 9,150 sold in April

Nameplate heroes include: Cadillac SRX (+587%), Chevy Equinox (+190%), and Buick Lacrosse (+272%)

GM sold 31% of its vehicles to fleet companies, a slight increase from March

GM spent $3,151 per vehicle on incentives, down -8.3% from April of last year

GM was the largest aggregate incentive spender, at $554,825,434

Ford: Market share up 16.6%/ sales up 25.7%

Ford’s sold 162,996 in April, that was enough to reclaim the second place slot from Toyota

Total sales were up dramatically compared to April, 2009. April marks the fifth month in a row of +20% growth at Ford. Still, sales were down 13.3% compared to last month.

Fleet mix stood at 64.4% truck vs. 35.5% car. Ford is one of the most truck dependent automakers on the ‘Movers and Shakers’ list

Nameplate heroes include: Ford Taurus (99.1%), Ford F-Series (42.4%), and Ford Escape (40.8%)

Ford Escape is now the automaker’s second bestselling nameplate w/ 19,146 units sold in the month. More Ford Escape’s were sold than Mercury’s and Lincoln’s combined.

Ford spent $2,921 per vehicle on incentives, down 0.3% from last year. Ford spends the least on incentives out of the domestic 3 makers.

Without including Volvo’s sales, Ford only beat out Toyota by ~1,000 for the second place crown

Toyota: Market share 16%/ sales up 24.4%

Toyota sold 157,439 vehicles, up 24.40% from April, 2009, but down 15.7% from last month

Toyota’s fleet mix stood at 59.3% car vs. 40.6% trucks – meaning Toyota sells more cars than the industry average

Toyota incentives reached all time highs at $2,416 per vehicle, that’s a 49.0% increase from last year, the highest increase for any automaker

Toyota truck sales did very well, up 33.5%, led by good growth from the Toyota RAV4, Toyota Highlander, Toyota Tundra and Toyota 4Runner

Despite the halt in Lexus GX sales earlier this month, Lexus managed a 47.7% increase in sales on the nameplate

Nameplate heroes include: Toyota 4Runner (204.3%), Toyota Corolla (50.7%), Toyota Prius (49.7%), and Toyota Tundra (45.4%)

Honda: Market share 11.6%/ sales up 12.5%

Honda sold 113,697 vehicles, up 12.5% compared to April, 2009.  Honda sales were also up 4.7% from March, one of the few ‘Movers and Shakers’ to post month over month sales gains.

Honda’s fleet mix totaled 58.5% car vs. 41.4% truck, as with many Japanese automakers, Honda is slanted towards a car fleet mix

Honda’s positive sales output was entirely due to its light trucks; overall car sales were actually down -1.4% from April, 2009.

Nameplate heroes include: Acura MDX (58.9%), Honda Pilot (41.9%), Honda CR-V (36.8%) and Honda Ridgeline (46.3%)

The Honda Fit posted its first positive sales numbers for 2010. Sales on the model grew by 14.2%

Honda spent $2,102 on incentive spending, that’s 13.7% more than last year

Chrysler: Market share 9.7%/ sales up 24.8%

Chrysler sold 95,703 that’s up 24.8% from April, 2009. Chrysler was the only other automaker to post positive, month over month, sales gains (+3.2%)

Chrysler was able to reclaim its 5^th position slot from Nissan in April

Nameplate heroes include: Jeep Compass (103%), Chrysler Sebring (207%), Dodge Avenger (340%) and Chrysler Town & Country (80%)

Chrysler spent $3,537 per vehicle, that’s down -15.8% from April 2009 and down from last month (-0.8%).

Despite the decrease in incentive spend, Chrysler was still the largest incentive spender per vehicle

Hyundai/Kia: Market share 7.6%/ sales up 19.5%

Hyundai Group sold 74,059 vehicles in April, that’s up 19.5% from April, 2009

This is the first month where Hyundai was not in the seventh slot. Hyundai Group usurped Nissan, for a historical move to sixth place

Fleet vehicle mixed equaled 68.5% cars vs. 31.5% trucks. Hyundai Group is the most car dependent automaker on the ‘Movers and Shakers’

Hyundai Group spent $2,204 per vehicle, that’s a -37.2% drop from April, 2009.

Hyundai Group spends the least on total incentives out of any major automaker

Nameplate heroes include: Hyundai Tuscon (271%), Kia Sorento (70%), Hyundai Santa Fe (59%), and Hyundai Sonata (57%)

Nissan: Market share 6.5%/ sales up 35.1%

Nissan sold 63,769 units in April, 2010, that’s up 35.1% from April, 2009’s abysmal sales pace. Nissan sales were down -33.2% when compared to March’s robust sales pace that put the automaker in 5^th place

Nissan fleet mix stood at 65.5% car vs. 34.5% trucks

Nameplate heroes include: Nissan Armada (87.5%), Nissan Frontier (60.2%), Nissan Xterra (52.1%), and Nissan Versa (43.9%)

Infiniti sales were up 20.5%, partially due to the new M (+174.8%) and continued success of the G series (54.4%)

Filed under: By the Numbers

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