Statscan - The rise reflectes especially strong sales in Ontario. Sales of both passenger cars and trucks were up.

After a sharp decline at the end of 2008, sales of new motor vehicles have generally been rising since the beginning of 2009. On a year-over-year basis, July's sales were 8.5% lower than July 2008.

Preliminary industry data indicate that the number of new motor vehicles sold was relatively unchanged in August.

A strong gain in North-American built passenger car sales in July

The number of new passenger cars sold in July rose by 6.3% to 63,025 vehicles. North American-built passenger cars were responsible for this increase with a 15.1% rise, the largest increase for this category since January 2008. The number of overseas-built passenger cars sold fell 4.4%, a third consecutive monthly decline.

Sales of new trucks (which include minivans, sport-utility vehicles, light and heavy trucks, vans and buses) increased by 4.3% to 63,640 units in July.

Ontario leads increases across Canada

Sales rose in all provinces across Canada in July. More than two-thirds of the national increase came from Ontario, where sales rose 10.0% following a slight decrease in June.

After posting the largest decrease in June, sales in New Brunswick rose 6.3%, completely offsetting that decline.

The lowest growth rates were posted in British Columbia (+1.5%), Nova Scotia (+1.9%), Newfoundland and Labrador (+2.2%) and Alberta (+2.2%). Sales in Alberta were 20.2% lower compared with 12 months earlier, the largest year-over-year decline among all provinces for a third month.

Note to readers

Seasonally adjusted data of new motor vehicle sales have been revised from 2004 to reflect an update in seasonal adjustment factors. Because of the constant evolution of seasonal factors, revisions can be more significant for some months of the year. However, the annual sum of seasonally adjusted figures corresponds to the annual sum of unadjusted estimates.