Report: 2012 Honda Civic takes title for top selling compact in May

2012 Honda Civic Sedan

A tsunami and uninspired attempt at a new Civic significantly dampened sales and production of the car last year, but this year’s freshened model is now the best selling compact car, with 33,490 units sold, an 82% increase compared to last year. The Toyota Corolla may be aging a little bit, but it was not far behind, with 31,847 sold this past month.

The Ford Focus comes in at a distant third with 24,769 units, a mere 11.1 percent increase over last year, though besting the decreases of the Chevy Cruze, Hyundai Elantra, VW Jetta and the Mazda 3 (only 8,474!), all of which are very far behind.

What do we make of these numbers? In the same way that a day or even a year of cold or hot weather is not a big enough data point to prove or disprove climate change, a month’s worth of data is not extremely significant.

The year numbers in this case do tell a bigger chunk of the story: with 135,000 copies of the Civic sold and only 61,000 Jettas (year to date) it would appear that VW has come with too little too late to the solid and reliable, if a bit bland compact car segment. Not exactly what they are interested in hearing given previous suggestions that they wanted to become the world’s number one automaker.

Check out the full sales figures for the compact segment in May 2012 after the jump.

Sales of Compact Sedans in May 2012

Car May 2012 Sales May 2011 Sales % Change YTD
Honda Civic 33,490 18,341 82.6 135,082
Toyota Corolla 31,847 16,985 87.5 125,079
Ford Focus 24,769 22,303 11.1 112,416
Chevrolet Cruze 19,613 22,711 -13.6 94,901
Hyundai Elantra 18,877 20,006 -5.6 80,114
Volkswagen Jetta 12,962 13,713 -5.5 60,921
Mazda3 8474 8789 -3.6 50,692

By: Sawyer Sutton

Source: MotorTrend