December 2017 Cadillac Sales

Cadillac ended 2017 on an overall high-note.  Sales have grown to the second highest level in the brand's history with sales up 15.5% over 2016's numbers.  This, as will come as no surprise to anyone, comes from massive increases in sales in the Chinese market.  In December, Chinese sales grew 28.5% (3817 units) over 2016's results.  This helped offset softness in the US market where sales were down 28.6% (6142 units).  'Rest of World' sales were also up 10.1% (227 units). As a result, December global sales were down 6.8% (2553 units).   So, as every month, let's take a look at how the US market got to its 6000 unit drop in 2017 (close to half of the 13566 drop in this market for the year.) In a surprising turn of events, not a single model saw a sales increase in December.  Sedans were all down (again).  ATS continued its slide (down 1199 for the month/ 8405 for the year.)   CTS declined yet again (down 892 in December / 5567 for the year.)  XTS dropped even more (down 1905 for the month / 5896 for the year.) - despite its recent refresh.  Only the CT6 flagship wasn't down in both measures (down 452 last month, but up 1373 for the year.) The normal savior of the brand, the XT5 saw an unusual downturn in December by a surprising drop of 7.4% (548 units) while being up strong when looking at the entire year (28,827 units or 73%).  It and the CT6 were the only offerings that saw sales growth for the year. Even the brand's legendary Escalade saw a drop both for the month (1020 units) and for the year (1358).  This may show a hit being taken by Lincoln's recent launch of the brand new Navigator taking a bite out of Cadillac's big SUV...it will take a few more months to judge this vs a potential move of customers away from big body-on-frame SUVs.  We are seeing that the big SUVs are pretty flat, sales-wise, with large crossovers like Audi's Q7 seeing significant growth. Looking at the big picture, we can see why Cadillac is planning to merge their sedan offerings (profitability on 4 models splitting this few sales is hard to come by) as well as rushing new crossover models to market. As we have said before, this can't come fast enough.