Mexico’s auto sales down 11.5% in January; allegedly glitch in GM systems may have played roll

3 February, 2018

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Due to an allegedly glitch in the computer systems of General Motors, the monthly report of auto sales by the Mexican Association of the Automotive Industry (AMIA) recorded a decrease of 11.5% during January to 109,145 units. This situation led GM to post a 52.2% fall in sales to 8,807 vehicles, moving the Detroit automaker from second to fourth place in the sales ranking, behind Nissan, Volkswagen and Toyota.

In a statement, the Detroit automaker said that a failure in their systems caused the report not to be updated correctly and that the actual sales figure will be released in the coming days.

Nissan, the best-selling brand in the Mexican market, posted an 8.4% drop in sales to 26,406 units, and a market share of 24.2%. The Nissan figures do not include its premium brand Infiniti, which sold 189 units in the first month of 2018, representing a -2.1% drop.

Volkswagen ended up in second place with a 15.1% market share and sales of 16,514 units, 15.4% less than January 2017. The Volkswagen figures include its Audi, Porsche and SEAT brands. Volkswagen alone sold 13,322 units, which represented a 14.5% decrease.

Toyota posted a 15.2% gain to 9,274 units and a market share of 8.5%. Figures from the Japanese automaker do not include its Lexus premium brand, which aren’t sold in the Mexican market.

Honda saw its sales fall 1.9% during January to 8,381 units, which represented a 7.7% market share. Those figures do not include the Acura brand, whose sales dropped 16.1% to 162 vehicles.

KIA kept its pace as the fastest-growing brand in the country with a 37.2% hike to 7,930 vehicles. The Korean automaker is now the sixth best-selling brand in Mexico with a 7.3% market share.

FCA posted a 21.8% drop in sales to 7,514 units and a 6.9% market share. It’s worth noting that aside of the Fiat, Chrysler, RAM and Jeep brands, its sales in Mexico also include those of the Japanese automaker Mitsubishi.

Ford sales dropped 17.4% last month to 6,408 units, which represents a 5.9% market share. Ford figures do not include its Lincoln brand, whose sales increased 3.4% to 185 vehicles.

Mazda saw its sales drop 1.1% to 4,728 units. The Japanese automaker kept the ninth position with a 4.3% market share. Meanwhile, Hyundai posted a 17% hike in sales to 3,805 vehicles, which led to a 3.5% share.

Regarding the premium market, BMW posted a 35.5% boost to 1,638 units, Audi saw an 8.3% increase to 1,203 vehicles and Mercedes-Benz sales fell 5.8% to 1,178 cars. It’s worth noting that the last figure may be higher since the German automaker excludes certain sales of high-end vehicles.

MexicoNow

- This is how auto sales ended up in 2017 over the NAFTA region