Toyota Motor Corp.’s U.S. light-vehicle sales declined 7.2 percent last month, with strong SUV, crossover and pickup demand failing to offset steep declines in cars.
Sales at the Toyota brand slid 4.4 percent last month compared with February 2016 while Lexus dropped 21 percent. Overall, Toyota Motor’s sales totaled 174,339 vehicles, including 155,962 Toyotas and 18,338 Lexus models.
Car sales at Toyota and Lexus experienced double-digit declines, leading overall car volume for the automaker to drop 17 percent to 77,100 vehicles. Light-duty truck sales increased 2.6 percent to 97,239 vehicles, led by Toyota brand crossovers and SUVs, which increased 14 percent to 54,622 vehicles.
The top-selling Toyota Corolla compact and Toyota Camry midsize sedans experienced losses of 11 percent and 15 percent, respectively. Toyota Avalon deliveries declined 34 percent, while the Toyota Prius lineup dropped 14 percent.
Toyota’s SUVs and crossovers all experienced double-digit sales increases except for the top-selling RAV4. Its sales increased 3.2 percent to 26,351 vehicles.
Sales of Lexus cars dropped 38 percent to 6,176 in February, including declines of 40 percent or more for the IS and GS sedan, RC coupe and CT hybrid.
All of the luxury brand’s SUVs and crossovers experienced declines greater than 5 percent, driving Lexus’ light-duty truck volume down 7 percent.
The February results mark Toyota Motor’s second-consecutive monthly loss, following a January decline of 11 percent compared with January 2016. It is only the second time since February 2014 that Toyota has experienced two or more consecutive months of year-over-year losses. The other was a four-month slide from May through August of last year.
Analysts expected Toyota’s February sales to decline up to 7.9 percent, with an analyst average dip of 4.8 percent, based on a survey of analysts by Bloomberg.
Among major automakers, Toyota typically offers the lowest incentives. ALG expected the company’s February incentive spending to average $2,155 per vehicle, up 2.5 percent from a year ago but still well below the $3,443 industry average.
The automaker’s sales through the first two months of the year have slipped 9.1 percent to 317,387 vehicles.
