MINIUSA Sales Down Due to Low Inventory
MINI USA continues to struggle with getting cars on the lots of dealers around the country as sales are once again down. A quick check at a few dealers indicated low numbers on the lots and high demand for the Countryman. Speaking of the Countryman, it’s getting closer to the R56 hatch in terms of sales. As you can see past the break, it’s only 600 unit behind. It had been over a thousand for the past few months. Will we ever see it surpass the R56? As we’ve previously predicted, don’t be surprised to see it on the top spot this winter.
Official Release: MINI USA reported sales of 3,999 automobiles in September. The September 2011 sales are down 18.1% from the 4,884 sold in September, 2010.
(Click through for the full sales break down)
Year-to-date, MINI sales in the U.S. are up 20.4% on volume of 41,635 compared to 34,588 in the first nine months of 2010.
<p>My R57 is in that stat. w00</p>
<p>Seems like the Fiat is taking a chunk out of MINI HT buyers</p>
<p>Yet they just said it was due to low inventory.. So no.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t totally discount the new car smell of the cheaper Fiat 500.</p>
<p>Not totally, just 98% ;)</p>
<p>They can blame the inventory but I doubt that its that</p>
<p>When my local dealership only has 10 cars on the lot I can believe it.</p>
<p>This is interesting for sure. How are sales world wide? I don’t think MINI makes as much on sales here as in Europe (or maybe other markets as well). If they are production capacity limited, it would make sense in the short term to sell as many as possible in the high profit channels. But that comes with a price. Many potential MINI owners here in the US may buy other cars, and it will be very hard to win them back. Any clue why they can’t keep the delivery pipeline full here in the US?</p>
<p>Pre Loved MINI’s are a great alternative and obviously not reflected in this info. I wonder how MINI Next is doing?</p>
<p>When I was at my nearest dealer last week to drive the Coupe their lot was practically overflowing with new cars and there was a delivery of Countrymen being unloaded at the time. But the MA told me they had almost no cars at all to sell over the summer. Must have been about 100 new cars on the lot though the day I was there.</p>
<p>I know that everything we’re getting here in CT. is sold except for a small minority of cars. It’s amazing. We have barely 24 cars of all models total in stock currently. It’s 2008 all over again!</p>
<p>Hey Mark, I’ll take a few of those off your hands :-)</p>
<p>Best…. Steve</p>
<p>bringing back the good ole days when almost all MINIs were factory ordered. </p>
<p>To bad MINI could not have leveraged the low numbers of MINI’s to try and get the custom ordered Coupes to the states closer to the 10/1 release date. Would have loved to see MINIUSA work with MINI to use the spare capacity to get these to the states earlier.</p>
<p>Thanks
for posting such material. Really useful post you got here , Keep continue with new updates , good to see you posting….</p>
<p>Inquiring minds want to know why the US inventory is so low. Oxford produced MINIs totaled 2792 compared to 4884 last September. Are sales around the world so hot that the factory is at capacity? Or is demand so low in the US? How about a 60 minutes investigation, Gabe?</p>
<p>My presumption is that its still partially due to the global economic meltdown and the Japan earthquake fallout still.</p>