Driving By Numbers: Canada's 5 winners and 5 losers in 2021's rebounding car market

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Nothing about 2020 was predictable; the unanticipated side-effects from last year are just as present, if not more apparent in 2021. The Canadian auto industry’s supply chains are disrupted, parts aren’t available in sufficient quantities, factory disruptions aren’t yet uncommon, and demand for new vehicles is very healthy. The result is a market that’s roiling, with significant chunks of market share flowing away from some of the biggest brands on the market.

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There are beneficiaries; auto brands who have just enough cars and SUVs to cater to customers who want a new vehicle and want that new vehicle now .

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Driving By Numbers: Canada's 5 winners and 5 losers in 2021's rebounding car market Back to video

Auto sales in Canada are rebounding. That was true even before 2020 closed, with third-quarter volume last year almost matching prior year totals. The first three months of 2021 showed improvement — sales were up 16 per cent — but it was the April-to-June period (made so awful by lockdowns in 2020) that really proved the bounce-back in 2021. Canadian auto sales of roughly 320,000 units in the second-quarter of 2020 were half again as strong this year at more than 480,000 vehicles.

A rising tide, however, is not lifting all boats. In a market that’s up 33 per cent so far this year, a gain of nearly 220,000 units, 11 brands saw their slice of the Canadian auto sales pie shrink. That includes significant market share decreases — five of which we’re chronicling in detail below — and more modest downturns like Jaguar’s drop from 0.19 per cent of the market to 0.14 per cent.

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On the other hand, there are some big winners. Nearly two dozen auto brands reported year-over-year first-half increases superior to that of the overall market. That includes behemoths such as Toyota and Hyundai, along with upstarts such as Genesis and Maserati. Which auto brands found enough supply to grow their market share the most? We’ve identified the five biggest winners, as well.

Losers

5. Chevrolet: 7.5 per cent, down 0.2 pps

Compared with the sharp decreases in market share at three of its domestic rivals, Chevrolet’s modest decline of two-tenths of a percentage point is hardly the stuff of which nightmares are made. (In 2021, every 0.1 per cent equals around 870 sales.) Granted, Chevrolet would be in a different position were it not for the success of the TrailBlazer (which added more than 4,000 sales to the ledger) and the all-electric Bolt, which more than doubled its sales to 3,485.

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4. Honda: 7.4 per cent, down 0.7 pps

Honda’s hopes for a stronger second-half rest in the new 11th-generation Civic. Safe place to rest your hopes, right? After all, the Civic’s been Canada’s best-selling car for 23 consecutive years. The only problem: cars are on the outs. Gone are the days when Honda could reliably sell 60-70,000 Civics per year — there were only 20,243 sold in the first six months of 2021. Honda’s volume rose 22 per cent to 64,630 units between January and June.

3. Ram: 4.8 per cent, down 1.1 pps

Canada’s most sorely harmed auto segment in the midst of a global microchip crisis is the full-size truck segment. See where this is going? Ram generates almost all of its sales from — that’s right — full-size trucks. In fact, 96 per cent of Ram sales come from trucks. Ram’s truck lineup’s volume is up just 10 per cent in 2021. That’s slow momentum in a market that’s up by a third so far this year.

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2. Dodge: 1.3 per cent, down 1.2 pps

With the Grand Caravan all but extinguished from the Dodge lineup and the Journey’s chapter now closed, Dodge is now a three-model lineup: Challenger, Charger, and Durango. As recently as 2019, Dodge relied on the Grand Caravan and Journey for 80 per cent of the brand’s volume. Dodge sold only 11,341 vehicles in 2021’s first six months, down 30 per cent compared with last year’s first-half.

1. Ford: 13.4 per cent, down 2.2 pps

The microchip shortage afflicting most corners of the global auto industry has been especially unkind to Ford, which relies on Canada’s No.1-selling F-Series truck lineup for the majority of its sales. Despite high pickup truck demand, Ford simply doesn’t have nearly enough trucks to sell. In an auto market that’s rebounding from 2020 with 33 per cent gains, the F-Series is up just 5 per cent. At 13.4 per cent, Ford’s first-half market share was down from 15.6 per cent a year ago.

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Winners

5. Subaru: 3.1 per cent, up 0.4 pps

Subaru’s ascent continues into 2021 primarily due to the fortitude of the brand’s No.1 seller: the Crosstrek. Four out of every 10 Subarus sold in Canada is now a Crosstrek, sales of which more than doubled to 10,872 in 2021’s first six months. Brand-wide volume is up 50 per cent. The Crosstrek, originally nothing more than an offshoot of the Impreza hatchback, now outsells the Impreza by more than 6-1.

4. Nissan: 5.7 per cent, up 0.4 pps

Nissan is due for a good year. With a product offensive encompassing a new Rogue, a new Pathfinder, and a new Frontier, 2021 is a must-succeed year for a brand that saw its market share decrease in each of the last two years. New versions of established light truck nameplates are big helps, but Nissan’s car lineup is making headway, too. Collective sales of the Versa, Sentra, Maxima, Altima, Leaf, GT-R, and 370Z are up 26 per cent in a car market that’s up just 18 per cent.

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3. Hyundai: 7.2 per cent, up 0.5 pps

Hyundai and its partner brand, Kia, bounced out of 2020’s spring meltdown at a healthy clip. In fact, Kia was Canada’s fastest-growing auto brand last year. In 2021, Kia’s market share uptick, valued at 0.33 percentage points, doesn’t quite measure up to the bigger Hyundai brand. Hyundai hit a home run with the new Tucson, second-quarter sales of which jumped 81 per cent to 8,628 units. Year-to-date, the Sonata, Kona, Palisade, Santa Fe, Tucson, and Venue are all outpacing the market’s year-over-year growth.

2. Mazda: 4.0 per cent, up 0.5 pps

In 2020, Mazda’s strong second-half enabled the small, independent Japanese outfit to gain significant chunks of market share. That trend continued in the first-half of 2021 as Mazda climbed to an even 4 per cent of the Canadian market. Major growth from the brand’s crossovers — especially the small CX-30 and large CX-9 — helped Mazda volume grow by nearly 12,000 units during the first six months of the year. That amounts to 34,575 total sales.

1. Toyota: 12.2 per cent, up 1.7 pps

Canada’s second-best-selling auto brand hasn’t sat atop the leaderboard on an annual basis since 2008. But if ever there was a prime opportunity, 2021 is it. Toyota isn’t struggling as much as its chief rival, Ford, with the ongoing chip supply shortage. As a result, the first-half sales gap between the two leaders narrowed to just 10,305 units. Last year at this time, Ford led Toyota by more than 33,000 units. Toyota’s second-quarter market share soared to 13.3 per cent, slightly ahead of Ford’s Q2 performance.