RICHMOND HILL, Ontario -

The Canadian car market showed modest improvement in October, but things were still rather sluggish in light of low consumer confidence, which sparked from negative news around the globe, according to DesRosiers Automotive Consultants.

Overall, there were 125,680 new vehicles sold in Canada last month, a 2.1-percent hike. Through October, year-to-date sales are up 1.5 percent at 1.35 million units.

“Yet another soft month for new light-vehicle sales in Canada as international headlines dampens consumer confidence and translates into a very lean market,” said Dennis DesRosiers, president of the company.

That said, the seasonally adjusted annualized rate — which came in at 1.65 million units — was the strongest it has been in five months, DesRosiers pointed out.

Breaking the sales data down further, the Big 3 moved 55,669 units in October for a 5.7-percent hike. Leading the charge was Chrysler, which improved 12.4 percent at 16,945 sales. Through 10 months, it has notched 198,971 sales, a 14-pecent gain.

General Motors had a fairly positive month, as well, generating sales of 19,542 units, which was the strongest of any OEM in Canada during October.

Year-to-date sales stand at 206,582 units.

“GM had a big October with sales up 9.1 percent, and this finally brought their sales for the year into the positive (up 0.1 percent),” DesRosiers stated. “GM also outsold Ford on the month for one of the few times in the last couple years, and for the month, was the best-selling OEM in Canada.”

Ford dipped 2.4 percent for October sales, moving 19,182 units. So far this year, it has sold 238,390 units, a 3.6-percent improvement, keeping Ford atop the Canadian market for year-to-date sales.

Moving along, import brands sold 70,011 units in October, a 0.7-percent dip.

All Japanese automakers — besides Toyota, which climbed 3 percent — were down. Honda/Acura was down 12.6 percent, and Nissan/Infiniti was off 14.2 percent.  Mazda’s sales slid 4.9 percent, and Mitsubishi slipped 20.7 percent. There was a 4.8-percent dip for Subaru sales and a 38.1-percent decline in Suzuki sales.

The Toyota division was up 3.2 percent, and the Lexus division was up 0.7 percent.

“The Japanese OEMs have been telling us for a few weeks now that the negative impact of the tsunami is now largely behind them, so their poor performance must be rooted in other issues; although there is still some supply side issues that need to be addressed,” he noted. “I personally think that it will be next spring before all the tsunami issues are fully resolved.”

DesRosiers went on to note that sales for European automakers continue to be “hot.” Volkswagen remains the leader and saw a 9-percent hike in October, while automakers like Mercedes-Benz/smart (up 16 percent), Volvo (up 13.2 percent) and others showed strides as well.

“And for the umpteenth month in row (34 months in the case of Kia), both Hyundai and Kia reached new sales records for the month with Hyundai up by 12.1 percent and Kia up by 15.4 percent,” DesRosiers noted.

“It appears that the Koreans have benefitted the most from the problems in Japan. Chrysler’s strength comes from their truck heavy line up of products which is benefitting from the economic strength in our resource Western provinces,” he added.