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Agent009
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The Truth in Sales Reporting, Before You Dare To Compare You Must Read This

Every month we keep you up to date on the latest in sales from 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 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 and paints a potentially stark picture for your investors on that month’s sales activities.

 

Now the Japanese (and the Americans to some extent) tend to look at it a bit differently and step in and may say the Germans are doing it all wrong. They prefer to factor in that this month you only have 24 selling days vs. 26 last year, so you have to base on your average “Daily Selling Rate” to get a true figure. While this seems fair, it does paint a far different picture. 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 we post a sales gain percentage to the press and the average person on the street sees the percentages and look 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.

 

Toyota, Honda, VW, and Nissan all posted less sales numerically than last year and posted declines in raw percentages. But if we change those to a DSR method three of the four now show sales gains.

 

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 21.5% decline with a raw figure to a slightly better 15% decline, still bad but better numerically. Lexus’ raw increase of 5.33% now translates to an adjusted increase of 14.11% much more favorable in the eyes of the beholder.

 

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.

 

 

April

April

 

Based on

Based on

 

2007

2006

Delta

Raw Data

DSR

Acura

15193

19372

-4179

-21.57%

-15.04%

Infiniti

9945

9618

327

3.40%

12.02%

Lexus

25995

24679

1316

5.33%

14.11%

Audi

8106

7412

694

9.36%

18.48%

BMW

25310

25250

60

0.24%

8.59%

Mercedes Benz

20895

21270

-375

-1.76%

6.42%

 

 

 

 

 

 

Honda

111226

119752

-8526

-7.12%

0.62%

Nissan

61179

77102

-15923

-20.65%

-14.04%

Toyota

184462

195286

-10824

-5.54%

2.33%

VW

19086

20528

-1442

-7.02%

0.72%

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blue indicates the figure reported to the press by the manufacturer

 

 

 

 

 



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izfuneyizfuney - 5/2/2007 2:40:17 PM
-3 BoostDrop the Boost Up the Boost
FUD - Agent009,
DSR is a far more reliable way of calculating sales.
Please understand that if the Japanese corrcted sales percent upwards for too few selling days in April 07 then they revised the Sales DOWNWARDS for March 07
(as a total of 101 selling days for all manufacturers so far in the year 07 )
So by that token, the Japanese have majorly UNDERREPORTED sales for March 2007 as they adjusted for too many selling days as opposed to 2006. I wonder why you didnt post a lovely article on that.

Furthermore, in the interest of credibility, why dont you post Sales for YTD ( 101 selling days) as it should be the same for all car manufacturers ?


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Agent009Agent009 - 5/2/2007 3:01:48 PMView My AgentSpace
+4 BoostDrop the Boost Up the Boost
This is true, the article was written when I saw a few people trying to compare percentages (you can't do that). You are correct that we are at a point where sales are all at 101 days. That post of losers and winners is forthcoming.

DSR is typically used in the retail sector to show performance of retail units. The German basically don't consider that a factor. Sales are sales to them. a bit hardcore.





Agent009Agent009 - 5/2/2007 3:06:03 PMView My AgentSpace
+4 BoostDrop the Boost Up the Boost
BTW no one is under reporting any sales, it is only the percentage that is affected due to the differences in accounting. So basically if you saw the Toyota rise of 2.33% and assumed they sold more cars overall for the month you were incorrect.



SilverAeroSilverAero - 5/2/2007 2:45:05 PM
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Wow, good research i never knew.

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SupraNeverBackSupraNeverBack - 5/2/2007 2:52:56 PM
-3 BoostDrop the Boost Up the Boost
009, you forgot to put GM, Ford, Chrysler-Benz on the list.

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GreenlightGreenlight - 5/2/2007 2:59:06 PM
-2 BoostDrop the Boost Up the Boost
But GM, Ford and Chrysler are not car companies.

Well...maybe by some union loving froozies, but we all know those are not real cars.



Agent009Agent009 - 5/2/2007 3:03:02 PMView My AgentSpace
+4 BoostDrop the Boost Up the Boost
I didn't want to make it longer than it needed. I just want you guys to understand that percentages are misleading.



mkk21mkk21 - 5/2/2007 3:11:26 PMView My AgentSpace
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I'm still a bit confused...

How does April '06 have more days than April '07? I thought no matter what year, April always has 30 days. Am I wrong on this?


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senorgatosenorgato - 5/2/2007 3:14:05 PM
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You can spin the numbers any which way, but the bottom line are raw units out the door. That's what drives profitability. At the end of the year, it all washes and if you don't sell as much as the previous year, then you're not as profitable.

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Agent009Agent009 - 5/2/2007 3:27:12 PMView My AgentSpace
+3 BoostDrop the Boost Up the Boost
the weekends fall on different days so you can have more Sundays in one month then another for example you had 5 Sundays in April.

May has 26 selling days vs 25 last year.



JUGNUJUGNU - 5/2/2007 3:18:17 PMView My AgentSpace
+1 BoostDrop the Boost Up the Boost
Toyota for example sell nearly 6K-7K cars a day, this means + or - a day will have a big effect on Percentage.

+1 Day and there Percentage would have been much higher.

Therefore I support DSR method.

JUGNU


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Agent009Agent009 - 5/2/2007 3:29:49 PMView My AgentSpace
+1 BoostDrop the Boost Up the Boost
It is great for judging retail stores sales performance per day, but poor in gaging overall sales performance as a percentage. It tells only one side of the equation where raw data tells nothing but the cold hard truth.



enthusiastx11enthusiastx11 - 5/2/2007 8:12:01 PM
+1 BoostDrop the Boost Up the Boost
but how many car dealers do you know that aren't open every day?


Will_Will_ - 5/2/2007 3:38:27 PM
+4 BoostDrop the Boost Up the Boost
Twisting of facts is a given in any industry. Regardless of which method is reported by which companies, the bottom line is that the raw data is what is going to to expose the truth. I think the Daily Sales Rate method is shady for the sole reason that each period will not match up from year to year.

Toyota went down 5%. *shocked*


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jeffy210jeffy210 - 5/2/2007 3:47:06 PM
+1 BoostDrop the Boost Up the Boost
Ah yes, as my old college stats prof said to us on the first day "There are liars, damned liars, and then statisticians" One thing i thank him for was teaching us to critically look at the numbers in multiple ways to see what picture they were trying to "paint by numbers"

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+1 BoostDrop the Boost Up the Boost
You can look at numbers so many different ways. You can spin them anyway you want.


CarbonBlueCarbonBlue - 5/3/2007 10:48:19 AM
+1 BoostDrop the Boost Up the Boost
sure looks like Audi is dominating to me...

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1970toyotamarc1970toyotamarc - 5/2/2007 4:23:28 PM
+2 BoostDrop the Boost Up the Boost
As I stated yesterday, the whole concept of DSR is antiquated. Surely by now, there are enough dealerships seliing on Sundays to make this irrelevant (possible SoCal bias).

Reagrdless, this is not new, and for some reason this was only a huge issue this month due to Japanese reports that show a declining number of sales with a DSR percentage increase. As izfuney pointed out, no one seems to react when Japanese DSR's are lower than the raw sales would indicate, due to a higher number of sales days in a month. Example, 10,000 units sold in a month last year, 10,500 this year, 5% increase. But if there were two more selling days (26 instead of 24), the Japanese would record this as a 3% decline. Anyone who pays close enough attention month after month knows to adjust for this, or to just look at raw numbers.

Posters as jeffy210 pointed out can always find ways to question statistics. I say, look at the raw data, the numbers, and judge from there. As a Toy fan I was quick to note, yesterday, that Toy's sales in the month were actually down for many models, but it appears that as a whole the industry had a lousy month, so that should not come as a surprise.


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EnnNorakEnnNorak - 5/2/2007 5:09:22 PM
+2 BoostDrop the Boost Up the Boost
Thanks for pointing out this inconsistency in reporting. Just proves that consumers should not pay attention to published sales figures. Most people have no clue as to which product they should choose and fall for lies and marketing hype perpertrated by dishonest executives. I get really upset when I see that a car I consider as substandard has achieved high sales figures -- all that tells me is that the public generally makes bad decisions.

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Designer1Designer1 - 5/2/2007 6:54:32 PM
+1 BoostDrop the Boost Up the Boost
Wow, does this mean the Germans can't calculate?
People, the right way is DSR, the more granular you go the more accurate. Its just simply the right way. If doing it based on months, then you're definitly dropping days, or passing this months value to the next, or the year's to the next when dealing with a leap year.

So definitly definitly the DSR is the right way to go and the Germen need to change their formula.


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chewychewy - 5/2/2007 8:27:15 PMView My AgentSpace
+1 BoostDrop the Boost Up the Boost
DSR is pointless, most dealerships are open on Sundays now. In other words, cars are sold 30 days a month now (or 31)

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cdokecdoke - 5/2/2007 8:43:07 PMView My AgentSpace
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In the state of Colorado, due to some foolish arcane law, it is illegal for car dealerships to be open on Sundays.

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