The holiday season may be over now, but as far as Fiat Chrysler Automobile’s January sales numbers go, the automaker is still haunted by the ghosts of vehicles' past.
FCA Wednesday reported U.S. sales fell 11 percent compared to January 2016, its fifth consecutive decline, with the majority of that decrease based off discontinued models such as the Jeep Compass and Patriot, as well as the Dodge Dart, Chrysler 200 and Town and Country editions.
While the Jeep brand saw an overall sales decrease of seven percent, several flagship products all finished higher for the month. Renegade paced the advances, jumping 52 percent, while Grand Cherokee was up 24 percent and Wrangler shined for the second straight month with a three percent increase.
Also encouraging for the automaker, despite the January drop, was its performance against analyst estimates. Many predicted the automaker would finish the month down over 14 percent and FCA was one of four brands which exceeded expectations for the month.
FCA is in the midst of a brand restructuring and has discontinued several sedan models in order to capitalize on what, it feels, is a high-demand truck and Sport Utility market. Many of its production lines are, or will be, shuttered for a time in order to retool and produce more profitable vehicles like Jeep and Ram. In addition, the company is launching a redesigned Compass this spring in place of the older Compass and Patriot, which FCA hopes will boost sales numbers in that category, while a next-generation Wrangler is further down the pipeline - scheduled for a November 2017 launch.
For the month, FCA’s Jeep division sold 58,415 units led by Grand Cherokee (17,301), Cherokee (12,551) and Wrangler (11,334). These three were also among the top-five selling vehicles in FCA’s entire stable. However, despite its overall volume, Cherokee sales numbers did continue to disappoint - tumbling 25 percent against last year.
While sales numbers were down across the industry for January, many said the decline was expected following a record December, and should not be an indicator of things to come.
“This is still a healthy level of sales,” Michelle Krebs, senior analyst with car-shopping website Autotrader.com said in a statement. “The year is opening with a bit of a hangover because of the extreme discounts we saw in December. It’s taking more incentives to move the metal.”
“It’s tricky to use January as a bellwether for how auto sales will trend for the year,” said Jessica Caldwell, executive director of industry analysis for Edmunds.com, during an interview with Bloomberg. “It’s the lowest volume month and only accounts for 6 percent of annual sales on average.”
