The auto industry recovery appeared to strengthen in December. A roundup of U.S. sales results for the seven major automakers, GM, Ford, Toyota, Honda, Chrysler, Nissan, and Hyundai, reveals that sales up were 9.7% compared to the same month in 2009, and 33.3% compared to November 2010. American consumers purchased close to 1 million vehicles from just these seven companies in December.
Here's the comparison of the year-over-year change in sales for the big seven:
It's not hard to see which automaker may not have been thrilled with its December results. Toyota was the only in this list to experience a year-over-year decline. Moving across the chart, the three American automakers experienced modest sales growth. Honda, Nissan, and Hyundai all had sales more than 20% higher than a year earlier.
The news is even better if you compare December's results to November:
Suddenly, Toyota's performance doesn't seem so bad. Its month-over-month sales increase was second only to Honda. All of these automakers saw their sales grow by at least 25% compared to November, except for Hyundai. Even though its sales led the year-over-year increase, they grew by only 10% compared to a month earlier.
Here's how the market share picture for these seven automakers changed moving from December 2009 to December 2010: