The Good Bad and the Ugly: US Auto Sales for the month of October

are you a former spice girl?

Suzuki up 25% from last year??? Wow!
They're still junk!

agree.

Its very clear that some people posting on this site have not yet left the little town they grew up in so here are some basic facts for the ignorant:

1) In Germany home of BMW, MBenz and Audi, Audi is no. 1, BMW no. 2 and Benz no. 3
2) In Europe, the top 3 Luxury brands are Audi, BMW and Benz (order varies by country, but Benz is generally no.1 in most of the countries). Similar in most parts of the world but varies quite a bit by country.
3) US consumers are much less informed about cars than people in most parts of the world. For example, the typical Lexus owner has no clue that they are Toyota clones..
4) A puported Luxury survey in any country in the world that doesn't rank Audi as one of the top 3 Luxury brands is clearly not a Luxury survey! Its either a "popularity" ranking, statistically inaccurate (very poor sample) or the audience was a bunch of morons..and there are many out there!
5) Every car Audi makes blows away the competition in its class or at the least matches it. Audi has "no" car that underperforms. None!, and no other manufacturer can claim that. Many are class benchmarks: RS4, A8, A3, Q7, and for the ignorant benchmark is not sales volume, but the whole package!!
6) Audi was dumb to have ignored the US market for so long (bogus 60 minutes bs regardless) so now they are paying the price and will have to work harder in the US to educate the ignorant.
7) Audis historically have not been properly marketed. Think, how many times you've seen ads for the a3, a4, a6 or a8, and compare to 3 series, 5 series, Lexus (pretty much any model). Compare that now to the Q7 and RS4, R8/R10 at Le mans, and you'll see how they're beginning to improve. How many Audi dealers have you seen, and how many are Audi only? The forum in NYC, Q7/RS4 marketing, r8 debut, placement in movies (I-robot, Transporter 2) show that they are now taking the US market seriously and are on the right track.

Prediction:
It will take some time to educate consumers in the US about the brand, but they are building momentum, and current evidence clearly shows that Audi has woken up. I believe that in the next 5 years, Audi will score well even in popularity surveys cloaked as Luxury surveys.

Guys ignore this post..lost a page and posted in the wrong section.. See rebuilding a brand - Audi!

a coupla interesting statistical anomolies on sales and shares of market.

gm is UP significantly for oct sales. and comparing Oct market share to year to date m/s, is also UP by 0.3%

toyota is up moderately on sales. and oct mkt share vs. ytd m/s is DOWN by 0.3%

yet on ytd SALES VOLUME, gm is DOWN 9.4% and toyota is UP by 12.2%.

can anyone explain this?

best i can analyze:

gm has had a very good month in october. toyota a moderately good month.

for the year as a whole, to date, gm has been just muddling along, with sales DOWN almost 10%. october saw a significant turnaround.

toyota has been booming along ALL YEAR. october was just a little "LESS good" than everyone else's GOOD october. so their market share, DESPITE good sales, is not showing up as well vs. other manufacturers.