Sad, but not unexpected

"Murphy expects Ford's U.S. market share to fall by more than a quarter, from 18.3% in 2005 to 13.5% in 2010, plunging it into fourth place among automakers selling in the U.S."

http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/13/auto...ex.htm?cnn=yes

One thing that surprises me about this report is that they say that Nissan maintains their momentum but Honda is "unexpectedly barren". This is not the impression that I have had, but I'm not a financial analyst. I guess time will tell.

Here is another article that may be of interest.

Honda says N. American sales better than expected

Maybe the commentator was noting that Honda doesn't sell very many different kinds of vehicles. Most of their sales come from just two products: Civic and Accord.

Granted, there are a lot of different *versions* of both these vehicles, but it's still just two models. The only new car they've added in a LONG time is the FIT.

By "barren" he could also mean that Honda's market share will remain largely unchanged for the forseable future. They're unlikely to grab anything from GM or Ford since they only make one truck. People interested in compact, budget-friendly, highly reliable, efficient cars are already going to shop Honda.

Of course, I seriously doubt that Ford and GM will go out of business. But at the rate they're going, I could easily see them being reduced to a "niche" automaker. After all, there will always be fools who feel the need to plop down $55k for a 6,000 pound guzzler so that they can run people off the road.

I don't see them going out of business, either. I see them selling off pieces of themselves until they're controlled by foreign manufacturers, something like GM selling 20% of itself to Nissan and Renault.

Would-be hypermiler

This has prompted me to try and find some sales numbers. This site has some good information, but a lot of it requires a subscription.

http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dl...ory=DATACENTER

The table on this page reveals a few things. In general, the market for June 2006 compared to June 2005 was down 10.5%. Although Honda's sales were flat for that month, the overall average was a decrease so Honda increased their market share. If you look at the 6 month period ending in these months (usually a better indicator), overall sales were down 2.4% but Honda was up 7.1%. This is a decent increase in market share.

If you only look at the top 7 manufacturers, only Toyota had better numbers. In contrast, Nissan was down 19.0% for the month and down 5.7% for the 6 month period. They have also had a few serious quality issues lately.

One of the things that analysts look at is company growth. Honda is increasing sales and market share while Nissan is declining in both. I guess I do not see Nissan as having momentum. I would not think that analysts would view the GM thing as positive. I'm just curious as to what they expect out of Nissan in the future.

Honda added the Element only 3 years ago, sort of a facelift of the CR-V platform. I see them all over the place, but owning one I notice more maybe.

I always forget about the Honda Element. It a neat... Whatever it is...

Actually, I think the Element's design is pretty innovative. It's funky without being ugly, and it's fuel economy doesn't completely suck. I guess there aren't many in my neighborhood because parking is so tough.

This is getting a little bit off topic, but I found these numbers and thought I would share. This is for June 2006 for the Honda Division of Honda America. The Civic and Accord (I used to have a 2002) account for over half of their sales.

Accord (29.3%)
Civic (23.6%)
Odyssey (14.0%)
CR-V (11.1%)
Pilot (10.3%)
Element (4.1%)
Ridgeline (3.5%)
Fit (3.4%)
S2000 (0.6%)
Insight (0.07%)

link

Neat-o! My educated guess was right: Honda really does earn half their income from just two cars. I guess it shows that they are two REALLY good cars!