General Motors Co. was the first of the major automakers to report Tuesday, saying that December sales rose 15.5% from a year earlier, to 223,932 vehicles, after factoring out the Pontiac, Hummer, Saturn and Saab brands it closed or sold as part of its bankruptcy reorganization during the summer of 2009. Of its remaining brands, Buick, Cadillac and GMC posted double-digit gains, while Chevrolet was up 9.1% for the month. Including the discontinued lines, GM's December sales rose 7.5%, to 224,185.For the year, sales of GM's core brands rose 21.3%, to 2.2 million vehicles. Including the discontinued lines, sales rose 6.3%.
The year marked some dramatic shifts in the industry.
Ford Motor Co. topped Toyota Motor Corp. to become the second-largest auto seller in the U.S., a position it last held in 2006. Ford captured about 16.7% of the market, up more than a full percentage point, according to George Magliano, an analyst at IHS Automotive. Toyota fell to about 15.1%, down more than a point and half, he said.
"That is a big shift. Toyota still has these big recall programs, and that has really hurt them. Ford has benefited from the problems at GM and Chrysler. They took the government [bailout] money and Ford didn't. It became the American manufacturer of choice," Magliano said.
Audi of America, Hyundai Motor Co. and its sister company, Kia Motors Corp., and Subaru of America all set U.S. sales records and gained market share despite the slow pace of auto sales overall. Volkswagen of America had its best year since 2003.
Analysts were especially impressed by the growth at South Korea's Hyundai and its Kia sibling.
"We used to call the top makers the big six -- the domestic three and the Japanese three -- and now all of our analysis is based on the big seven and includes Hyundai," said Jesse Toprak, an analyst at TrueCar.com.
He said Hyundai has made the leap from a brand for people "who couldn't buy or afford anything else" to one that offers autos "people choose to buy based on the merits of the products."
Magliano said that when the final numbers come in, the Hyundai/Kia combination might edge out Nissan North America Inc. to become the sixth-biggest auto seller in the U.S. IHS Automotive estimates that if that shift did not happen this year, it will by the end of 2015 and that Hyundai will also near the market share of Chrysler Group in future years.
Regardless of the brand, most automakers experienced more robust sales in the final months of last year, he said.
"The strong fourth quarter resulted from consumers who were looking -- especially the upper end -- to go out and purchase finally. It was just pent-up demand. There was not great improvement in jobs or credit availability," Magliano said.
And much was going right for the industry.
"Transactions prices went up. We weren't giving away all these vehicles. Fleet sales declined and retail sales went up, so that's a good sign, and people were buying at the upper end of the model line, not just the stripped-down vehicles," he said.
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