Amid all the sky-is-falling news about declining car sales in 2017, there was this little nugget of good from Cadillac: Global sales for April were up a whopping 40.9 percent over April, 2016. It’s the continuation of a party that started last year, when the GM luxury brand posted its best global sales numbers since 1986 with more than 300,000 vehicles sold.
So what’s driving all these sales? China. The Asian country replaced the U.S. as Cadillac’s no. 1 market. So far, retailers in China notched 53,327 sales to U.S. dealers’ 46,282, which works out to a 7,035 difference. If the idea that China loves Cadillac more than America hurts your head, consider how fast China’s love affair came on: At this point in 2016, Americans had snapped up 19,171 more Cadillacs than the Chinese. In short, China sales nearly doubled in a year, while pretty much holding steady in the U.S.
The Cadillac model powering these good numbers is not the mighty Escalade SUV, or the sophisticated, techno-packed XTS sedan. It’s the newish XT5 crossover, which just might be the most functional and practical Cadillac for sale right now. There is one silver lining for the U.S. market, the average sale price of a new vehicle rose by $1,000 to $55,174.
Here are the numbers:
| April -2017 | April – 2016 | YTD – 2017 | YTD – 2016 | |
| U.S. Sales | 12,300 | 11,236 | 46,282 | 46,869 |
| China Sales | 13,903 | 7,007 | 53,317 | 27,698 |
| Overall (includes the rest of the world) | 28,163 | 19,986 | 106,805 | 81,162 |
