New Vehicle Sales Bounce Back

If you notice your local car dealer is smiling, the March figures on sales might be the reason.

StatsCan has just updated its monthly report on new vehicle sales activities in the province and it shows a remarkable improvement.

After the performance they saw in February which was trailing last year’s pace slightly, March was a boomer. The number of units leaving dealer lots rose by 1300 from February to March. But the truly revealing number is evident when you compare this March to the same month last year.

A year ago, as the pandemic was setting in, sales fell off a cliff to 2,400 transactions for the month. Now fast forward to this month and that number jumped to 4,500 – a near doubling of the pace of a year ago.

But we can expect next month’s report to be even more of a turnaround.  April of last year was the first full month of the pandemic and activity bottomed out. When we get this year’s April figures in a month, no doubt they will be at least double and perhaps even higher, than last year.

Source: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=2010000101&pickMembers%5B0%5D=1.9&pickMembers%5B1%5D=2.1&pickMembers%5B2%5D=3.1&pickMembers%5B3%5D=5.1&cubeTimeFrame.startMonth=02&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2020&cubeTimeFrame.endMonth=03&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2021&referencePeriods=20200201%2C20210301