Car Sales Numbers Confirms That U.S. Contraction Is Accelerating

Year over year car sales gains in the U.S. were even worse in February than in January for all except Chrysler. Here is the February yearly change with the January number in parenthesis:

GM: -53% (-49%)
Ford: -48% (-40%)
Chrysler: -44% (-55%)
Toyota: -40% (-32%)
Honda: -38% (-28%)
Nissan: -37% (-30%)

German auto makers and Korean Hyundai continues to take market share from the U.S. and Japanese auto makers with BMW sales declining 35%, Daimler (Mercedes)sales declining 21% and Volkswagen sales declining 19% and Hyundai sales declining just 1.5%.

While the fact that February 2009 had one day fewer than February 2008 caused a slight downward bias in these numbers, this still confirms the view that the U.S. contraction is accelerating in pace.