Having suffered a significant decline in the automotive segment in 2009 which was near catastrophic for its domestic OEMs, the prospects for the North American car market are looking significantly healthier in the first half of 2010, according to the latest figures supplied by JATO Dynamics, a provider of automotive intelligence.
Despite continuingly difficult economic conditions, some consumer confidence appears to be returning to car buyers in the market. In the period from January to the end June 2010, the combined market for car and light trucks rose by 17% with a total of 5,614,280 units sold, compared to the same period last year. Only the budget car segment, sports cars and compact pickups, failed to post a sales improvement, while a notable strong improvement was posted by the Compact SUV segment, which was up 31.6%.
In overall sales terms with cars and light trucks combined, Ford is once again the market’s best-selling brand, with a strong recovery of 30.4% over the same period in 2009. Chevrolet also posted a significant increase — 2.8% — to take second spot. Despite well publicized global recall issues, Toyota performed strongly in the market to retain its third spot, while Honda and Nissan round off the top five overall brands.
The Toyota Camry model remains the best-selling car with 154,239 units sold, representing a 2.7% improvement over the same period last year. Toyota also holds the spot for the market’s third best-selling car, with the smaller Corolla/Matrix model having sold 140,501 units, a 15.5% increase over last year. The Honda Accord secured second place.
Unsurprisingly, the best-selling truck is once again Ford’s F-Series truck, which sold a staggering 240,345 examples, 33.8% up on the same period last year.
 “The recession hit the U.S.A. car market particularly hard in 2009,” said David Mitchell, president, Americas, “but the figures JATO is reporting for the first half of this year must be enormously encouraging to the industry bosses. Barring unforeseen disasters, this improvement should continue throughout the rest of the year.”