Cadillac’s Poor US Sales Contrast With Size of Larger Rivals
The turnaround experiment at Cadillac is in trouble, at least in the United States. Sales of the brand fell sharply in February.
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[cnxvideo id=”655243″ placement=”ros”]General Motors Co.’s (NYSE: GM) turnaround experiment at Cadillac is in trouble, at least in the United States. February sales of the brand fell 8.6% to 10,823. That means Cadillac’s effort to gain on the industry leaders Mercedes, BMW and Toyota Motor Corp.’s (NYSE: TM) Lexus have faltered. All three of the rival brands sell over 20,000 almost every month.
For the first two months of the year, Cadillac sales have dropped 6.5% to 21,121.
In February, sales of Cadillac’s multiyear core of models dropped. Sales of small sedan ATS fell 36.8% to 1,005. Sales of midsize sedan CTS dropped 37.5% to 913. Ultra-high-end sport utility vehicle (SUV) Escalade sales fell 21.2% to 1,434. The Escalade ESV posted sales of 1,012, down 3.3%.
Cadillac has expected sales of two new models to turn its fortunes around. Sales of one of these were less than modest. Sales of the new CT6 full-sized sedan were only 802. Its new XT5 crossover did better at 4,291.
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Among Cadillac’s primary problems is that the XT5 and CT6 have a number of strong and better-selling competitors. Each of the major luxury brands has one or more vehicles that compete with the XT5 and CT6. Cadillac has to elbow its way into a very crowded and well-established field.
Among the three industry leaders, BMW sales rose a very modest 0.3% in February. However, it sold an impressive 22,558 vehicles. Mercedes sales slipped 2.9% to 22,941. Lexus sales hit a free fall, down 20.6%, but it still managed to sell 18,338 vehicles.
Cadillac sales need to double for it to be a major contender. Instead, they are dropping off.
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