Blizzard Hurt January Car Sales, but Fiat Chrysler Thrives

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 2:27PM EST · Published Jan 28, 6:55AM EST

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Blizzard Hurt January Car Sales, but Fiat Chrysler Thrives — © Thinkstock

The blizzard that shut down parts of the states from Kentucky to Rhode Island affected cars sales, according to Kelley Blue Book (KBB). The event barely hurt Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (NYSE: FCAU) sales as the manufacturer posted another strong month in January.

Total U.S. car sales dropped 2.5% this month, according to KBB forecasts, to 1,120,000. Fiat Chrysler sales rose 0.7% to 146,000. The company owns the Fiat, Chrysler, Ram, Dodge and Jeep brands. Its sales have been helped by the popularity of its sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and pickups, particularly Jeep and Ram products.

All other manufacturers posted losses in sales compared to January 2015. Volkswagen posted the biggest drop, down 5.1% to 37,000. As the emissions scandal lingers, it is amazing the German company did so well.

The number one manufacturer in the United States, General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM), suffered a sales drop off of 2.9% to 197,000. GM owns the Chevrolet, GMC, Buick and Cadillac brands.

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F), which owns the Ford and Lincoln brands, barely held its lead over Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM), which owns Toyota, Scion and Lexus. Ford’s sales were off 4.8% to 169,000. Toyota’s were off 3.7% to 163,000.
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Tim Fleming, KBB analyst, reported:

This month’s new-car sales were impacted by the historic blizzard Jonas that covered much of the East Coast in snow late in January. Since the blizzard hit densely populated areas during a weekend, when dealerships see the most foot traffic, Kelley Blue Book anticipates sales to dip slightly; however, any lost sales will likely be postponed until February. January is typically the slowest month of the year for automotive sales, as consumers recover from the holiday season and pull forward many purchases into December to take advantage of available year-end deals.

What appears to be a difficult month apparently will be cured in February.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.