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Every month we keep you up to date on the latest in sales from the biggest automakers.  But if you look at the numbers closely you may see the hidden facts behind the PR department’s smoke and mirrors game.

I will come out and say right here, that all reporting of sales on AutoSpies is basically the press release from the manufacturer as posted through a variety of legitimate news outlets.  But if you try to take the figures and compare against the competition you will find some of you may have oranges, while others may have apples.  The figures just don’t compare and here is why.

The Germans tend to report sales strictly based off of the raw sales numbers.  Basically you are up or down in sales according to the month.  So if you sold 9,500 vehicles this month vs. 10,000 vehicles for the same month last year, you have posted a 5.0% decrease in sales or a drop of 500 units.  Brutally honest and simple this form of reporting can paint a potentially stark picture for your investors on that month’s sales activities.

Now the Japanese tend to look at it a bit differently. They may say the Germans are actually doing it all wrong.  They prefer to factor in that each month is different, and for example this month you only have 24 selling days vs. 26 last year, so you have to base reporting on your average “Daily Selling Rate” to get a true figure.  While this seems fair, it does paint a far different picture to the casual observer.  Maybe for the very reason Infiniti last year changed reporting rules to Raw reporting after flipping back and forth depending on the best figure. Let’s take the example above and compute the figures according to this new philosophy.

If you remember we sold 9,500 cars for the month vs. 10,000 for the same period last year. The only difference is that last year we had 2 more selling days than this year. After computation we now can successfully claim that our 5.0% drop in sales is now almost 3.0% GAIN in sales for the month based on the “Daily Sales Rate”. Yet we still sold 500 less vehicles.  So now we post that sales gain percentage to the press and the average person on the street sees a positive figure and looks no further.

Why is this possible? It basically boils down to the fact that there are two acceptable way of reporting sales that yield marked differences in perception.  If we run a few of the major players with differing reporting methods for last month we see the following.

Acura, and Infiniti both posted less sales numerically than last year and show declines in raw percentages.  But if we change those to a DSR method Infiniti now shows a sales gain percentage.

Now if we take Acura’s dismal sales last month we can see by reporting it based on DSR, we get a change from a 9.22% decline with a raw figure to a slightly better 1.65% decline, still bad but better numerically.  Lexus’ raw increase of 5.4% now translates to an adjusted increase of 14.18% much more favorable in the eyes of the beholder.

How It All Stacks Up:

Below are the percentages as reported to the media yesterday with Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Lexus posting double digit gains     for the month. BMW trails slightly behind with single digit increase.  Both Acura and Infiniti are indicating small declines in sales.
 

 

 

Jan-10

Jan-09

Delta

%

1

Mercedes-Benz

15,158

10,433

4,725

45.29%

2

Audi

6,510

4,722

1,788

37.87%

3

Lexus

15,517

14,722

795

14.18%

4

BMW

13,163

12,232

931

7.61%

5

Acura

7,132

7,856

-724

-1.65%

6

Infiniti

6,711

7,115

-404

-5.68%


Now if you level the field and correct the posted figures to a raw figure you can see we have a few changes.  On an even playing field Lexus falls to fourth with actual gain of only 5.40% vs. a reported increase of 14.18%.  If Infiniti on the other hand had kept to prior reporting standards, they could have actually posted an increase percentage for sales even though they had sold less vehicles overall.  As you can see can’t simply compare percentages due to the different reporting methods.

 

 

Jan-10

Jan-09

Delta

Raw

DSR

1

Mercedes-Benz

15,158

10,433

4,725

45.29%

57.40%

2

Audi

6,510

4,722

1,788

37.87%

49.35%

3

BMW

13,163

12,232

931

7.61%

16.58%

4

Lexus

15,517

14,722

795

5.40%

14.18%

5

Infiniti

6,711

7,115

-404

-5.68%

2.18%

6

Acura

7,132

7,856

-724

-9.22%

-1.65%


To most of us though volume is still king, and here is the lay of the land for the 6 major luxury import brands.  Interesting to note is Mercedes-Benz is hot on the heels of Lexus where last year is was BMW.  Don’t read too much into these figures though we are only one month in to the year.

 


Overall Volume

Jan-10

Jan-09

Delta

Lexus

15,517

14,722

795

Mercedes-Benz

15,158

10,433

4,725

BMW

13,163

12,232

931

Acura

7,132

7,856

-724

Infiniti

6,711

7,115

-404

Audi

6,510

4,722

1,788

 The purpose of this exercise is to warn you to look close at the figures to see what is really going on, and never take a percentage as a reality. They can be deceiving.  Many of the posts by our readers are based purely on the percentages not the raw figures.  Both are correct to a degree but it is easy to put you foot in your mouth and think your are doing better than you really are.




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Sales Figures Aren't All Alike- What To Compare And What To Believe

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