Canada April 2026: Toyota, Volvo, Genesis islands of growth in negative market

Toyota Tacoma sales are up 54.4% in April.

Local consultancy DesRosiers Automotive has the Canadian new light vehicle market down -3.9% year-on-year in April to an estimated 178,000 units. Keep in mind April 2025 was the biggest April volume since 2018 so the comparison base is quite high. In this context, and given record high petrol prices, this month’s result is actually not that bad. Indeed the SAAR of 1.83 million, although down from the 1.90 million of April 2025, is also quite satisfying and just down from the 1.85 million of March. Note total sales for manufacturers still reporting monthly are down -7.1% to 77,349. The year-to-date result after four months stands at 584,000, -5.3% below the same period a year ago.

Among OEMs reporting monthly data, Toyota Motor (+5.9%) is the only one in positive, with Hyundai-Kia (-2.6%) resisting slightly better than the market but Honda Canada (-14.8%) skidding. Brand-wise, Genesis (+16.1%), Volvo (+16%) and Toyota (+8.5%) keep their head above the water, Hyundai (-0.7%) is stable while Kia (-6.8%), Acura (-8.5%) and Lexus (-8.9%) contain their fall to the single digits. Subaru (-27.3%) and Mazda (-26.7%) are in serious trouble.

As for models with monthly sales available, the Toyota RAV4 (-37.4%) is back above its archenemy the Honda CR-V for the first time this year and despite a still catastrophic YoY loss. The CR-V leads by almost 5,800 sales YTD. The Hyundai Tucson (+13.7%) is very solid as are the Kia Sportage (+25.7%) and Toyota Corolla (+27.4%), the latter surprising given the traditional poor performance of passenger cars. The Toyota Sienna (+65.2%), Tacoma (+54.4%) and Kia Seltos (+42.8%) all shoot up.

Previous month: Canada March/Q1 2026: Ford Motor (+14.4%), Stellantis (+14.6%) shine, sales down -4.4%

One year ago: Canada April 2025: Honda (+53.2%) helps push market up 10.2%

Full April 2025 data for selected OEMs, brands and models below.