April 2017 Cadillac Sales - China #1 Again

Cadillac has announced their global sales for April.  Of note, this marks yet another month of amazing growth in the Chinese market and the second time this year where China has leapfrogged the US to be the largest market for the brand. US sales are up over 1000 units this year (more impressive when you realize that there was one fewer 'selling day' in the US market this year).  China, however, had sales that were almost double the same month last year and exceeded US sales by over 1600 units.  This marks the second month this year that China has been the #1 market for Cadillac. Both far outpace the rest of Cadillac's markets where fewer than 2000 units were sold (more than a 12% increase, but numerically pretty small). This does lead to the question of what this means for Cadillac.  Will US and China trade off the #1 spot or are we well on the way to the Chinese market taking the top stop long-term?  Either way, the Chinese consumer will be a discussion point for decisions Cadillac makes for future product - but beyond quirks about a higher percentage of chauffeured buyers (and long-wheel base variants that encourages) there should be a line Cadillac can walk that will provide compelling products that are shared between the markets.   Now, let's dive deeper into the US sales numbers and see what is happening. This table lists April 2017, April 2016, and % Change. This allows us to see that all models, save the XT5 (which replaces the SRX) are suffering in today's market. It is clear that the sedan market is shrinking.  ATS is down the smallest percentage of the Cadillac sedans, but all are down significantly with the possible exception of the CT6/XTS where we may be seeing people moving out of the XTS market and into CT6 as they see the newer car as the 'top' model where the XTS was viewed by some buyers that way before.  Given that the XT5 is up 2500 units over the SRX that it replaced - it is still clear that Cadillac can not bring the new larger and smaller XT-family crossovers to market soon enough.  But, it will be interesting to see the stories about how Cadillac has found its groove in a year or two when it is showing massive sales increases - when the current problem is just not selling products in the segments luxury buyers are interested in right now.