Toyota’s Camry has been No. 1 for more than a decade, but the company is stretching to keep it there with price cuts, rebates and lease deals.
Camry sales fell 2 per cent from January through June. Meanwhile its main rivals in the midsize car market — the Honda Accord, Nissan Altima and Ford Fusion — posted big gains. The hot-selling Accord trailed Camry in sales by 21,000 at the end of June. Last year at this time the gap was 59,000.
Toyota has raised discounts and cut the Camry’s price in an effort to keep it on top. In early July, the Camry’s average sales price was the lowest of the nine top-selling midsize cars, according to data from J.D. Power and Associates obtained by The Associated Press. Discounts on the Camry were among the highest in the segment, according to the data.
Camry has lost style points, literally. While the car’s ultra-conservative design appeals to many loyal Toyota buyers who favour basic transportation, others are defecting to the sportier Accord, Fusion and Altima, industry analysts say. Those cars also have more features and better performance, they say.
“Although the Camry is not that old, it certainly seems older than the rest,” said Jessica Caldwell, senior analyst for the Edmunds.com automotive website. She says Toyota needs to hold onto Camry’s market share because it’s the mainstay for the brand in the US, Toyota’s largest market.
Through June, Toyota sold 207,626 Camrys. But Accord sales rose 21 per cent during the same period to 186,860. Altima sales gained nearly 8 per cent to 167,787, while Fusion sales rose nearly 19 per cent to 161,146. Since January, the Camry’s share of the midsize car market has fallen by 1.6 percentage points to 12.6 per cent, according to Ward’s Automotive. During the same period, the Accord gained 0.5 points to 11.2 per cent.
To combat the falling sales and market share, Toyota has lowered the Camry’s price. The Camry on average sold for just over US$20,900 in early July, about US$1,400 below the price from a year ago, according to the J.D. Power data. Discounts, such as low-interest loans and sweet lease deals, totaled nearly US$3,100 per Camry, up almost US$1,900 from July of last year and among the highest in the market, according to the data.
