Despite all of the mess, Saab sales are up month to month in the US. You’ll remember, June sales were 323 units. This month, Saab has sold 384 units. The 9-4X contributed 17 of these, and for those interested, there are 180 in inventory. Great launch? Hardly…these should be sold out, considering how many thousands Cadillac sells of its (uglier in my opinion) cousin, the SRX each month. It goes to show how negatively the financial troubles around Saab are impacting them, and gives us hope that once Saab’s financial situation is sorted through this autumn (hopefully by someone not dependent on Government approvals, hint), that we’ll finally be able to talk about the amazing product Saab has and their bright future.
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I’m surprised there aren’t more 9-4x in stock. I guess it reflects the doldrums SAAB is going through.
As we’ve noted before, I don’t know how much the general US public is aware of Saab’s financial woes. The trouble with the 9-4x launch, it seems to me, is a complete lack of advertising, except that conducted by individual dealers. That’s also true, of course, of the other models as well. But one can’t expect to do well with a new model without a flashy ad campaign.
Yup. Zero advertising. Can’t move cars without advertising unless you’re Maserati or Ferrari.
And Maserati sold 199 cars in June 😉
I haven’t seen a single mention of the 9-4x in print, internet or TV ads. You can’t sell a car that no one knows exists.
I agree the general public doesn’t know about Saab’s troubles here in the US but people shopping for cars do, in the age of google, anyone searching for car reviews is going to learn about Saab’s problems and I bet that’s keeping people away. Given the economy not many people are taking chances on what could be a future headache of no warranty coverage or spare parts
On a bright side the 9-5 is very slowly gaining steam and I’m starting to see them appear here in California.
It’s hard to sell a new model if you don’t have any at the dealership. We still haven’t recieved any 9-4x here on the west coast (California).
Has to be advertising on the 9-4X. Only Saab fans know it’s in stock. If the general public saw this car and drove it, particularly comparing it to the Cadillac, they would be all-in.
I can’t believe Saab has sold less than 4000 cars this year. I would love to know what their plan is for increasing sales in the US. I understand they have bigger issues on their plate right now that they need to sort out, but the plates need to keep spinning here while that is done, and it looks like they are falling.
Last year at this time, Saab sold twice as many 9-3’s as it did last month. How is that possible?
Right now, Saab basically has a seven-month supply of cars on the lots, and they’re selling at $10K off. I just don’t know how this continues, but I’d love to hear from Saab how they plan to come back in the states without advertising the 9-4X. It’s their only hope at this point until the new 9-3 comes out.
I am happily suprised by the number of 9-5 sold. Compared to other months of this year, the 9-5 sold quite well. And I agree with the above posters, it’s certainly a lack of advertising that is driving down sales. You can’t sell what the public is unaware of. I believe 9-4 sales will increase as the dealers will have a full month to sell them vice the partial month of July when the cars arrived around the 14th or 15th.
384 is quite ok for now. 100 sold in Sweden….that makes 484……while we so far have seen nothing from the other mid size and small markets yet……No update since may either on “saab sales data”…..
It has been so quite now for a while that I begin to think that Victor Muller has some BIG positive news around the corner…… 🙂
I’ve been quite lazy, sorry.
I will update the other markets later today.
Relax Red J…..it´s a holiday month…..but I found out that in Ireland there were 4 Saabs sold in July……. 🙂 Better than none…. 😉
Then we are already at half way to my prognosis 😉
I hope you are wrong….because it would be great if there wer 1500…..or 2000 🙂
Myself I think about 8-900…. Not that many left in stock in Europe probably….and a few more small countries could get 0……
I am very curious to know what the Canadian sales figures are (assuming of course they are burried inside the SCNA numbers as they should be considering SCNA has full responsibility for Canada).
I seem to remember reading a while ago that there were 700 9-4x`s pre-ordered?
Maybe by dealers. But not by customers:
http://media.saab.com/press-releases/2011-07-15/first-saab-9-4x-arrives-us-dealers
If they have 100 preorders, those haven’t been delivered yet or they would be counted in the sales right? Must be a slow roll out in addition to zero advertising.
…or 83 of the 100 preorders cancelled…
The fact that Saab couldn’t pay its bills made the local Chicago paper. That means that other people besides the ones who read Saabsunited know about the problems. I have had 4 new Saabs and I have to tell you that if I was buying a car now, I couldn’t bring myself to buy a Saab. I am planning on taking a trip. I have thoughts of the car breaking down and not being able to get it fixed or get parts if something did need to be replaced. It is making me very nervous. I have seen the 9-4x in person now. I really like it. At least the 9-4 could be fixed at a Cadillac dealer. If they could get parts. I waited 3 weeks for a window switch.
A dealer close by has 3 9-4xs. My local dealer doesn’t have any.
My local Saab dealership in San Antonio (has a new Saab manager, amazing), has two 9-4x’s on the lot. I asked about an Aero and she said that it is on its way but already bought. The two on the lot don’t have naviagation but do have panaromic.
No advertising, I just happend to pull up their site and I was very surprised to see they had some.
I’m leaning towards the 9-4x, she said for me to order a 2012 9-4x Aero, it would probably take till November. The cloesest contender is the Q5. I need convincing that buying a Saab won’t be a mistake at this point.
Buying a Saab is never a mistake.
We have some here that don’t agree, but to many people have come a long way to stop now. Saab is here to stay. 8-/
That’s now my “local” dealership, although I live in Bossier City, Louisiana. (Technically, there are two closer, but we have friends in San Antonio and that dealership/service in amazing.) We, too, looked at the two 9-4Xs on the lot and they’re FWD without navigation. When we see one AWD with navigation, we’ll be “in.”
FWIW, no issues with parts on our 2010 9-5 Aero. Back right turn signal blew out and it was a socket issue. No delay in getting the bulb and socket replaced. Again, great service there in San Antonio! Plus the wash and vacuum is always a nice complimentary touch!
Any breakdown on what the “In Stock” 9-4xs are (3.0i, Premium, Aero) ? I know the one I saw at my local dealer was fairly no frills 3.0i. Perhaps this is impacting sales?
Personally, I think the lower priced ones would sell better. At $30,000, there is no competition that I know of. I could take a chance. At $50,000, there is a lot more competition. All with companies in much better financial shape. Remember that everyone complained about the 2010 9-5s being too expensive.
There are some other markets popping in with sales numbers.
Estonia, Ireland and Poland.
http://www.bmsg.se/saab_sales.pdf
Lies,Damn lies and statistics.Sales are down from July of 2010,a month when I was still working in Saab sales and the 9-5 was yet to even hit a U.S. showroom.
Indeed. That’s what’s so scary… That there’s such inventory out there and yet they failed to sell as many cars this year as they did last year. Investors must have a lot of faith to be giving Saab money right now. More faith than I have, sadly, and I don’t own any cars that aren’t Saabs…
I think there are more people aware of the situation then you think. I am a loyal Saab owner, but I would have a problem putting money down on a Saab right now.
Not just that there is no advertising. Looks like there are hardly any dealers left. I live in the Dallas area and there are no more Saab dealers in the whole 5 million Dallas/FT.Worth Metroplex.
The Sewell dealerships which sold Saab until last year are now selling Minis. Since they also got hit with the death of Hummer I guess these guys became cautious and did’t wanna keep another maybe dieing brand.