California’s 2009 new car sales decline steeper than nation’s
• Just over one million new vehicles were sold
• ‘The lowest sales volume in California since 1975
Registrations of new cars and light trucks last year in California declined 28.3 percent compared with 2008 — even steeper than the 21.2 percent decline in the U.S. market, the California New Car Dealers Association says Thursday.
California’s decline in sales slowed to 13.7 percent during the second half of the year, from a 39.6 percent slide during the first half of 2009 versus a year earlier.
“New car dealers in both Northern and Southern California experienced massive decreases in sales last year,” says Tom Hoffman, CNCDA chairman . “New vehicle sales in 2009 (1,038,271) were less than half the sales just four years ago (2,158,617) and represent the lowest sales volume in California since 1975.”
