Retail sales of greases and lubricants at select United States automotive retail chains rose 17%, and transmission fluid sales rose 11% for the 52-week period ended April 29, according to a market information company’s retail tracking service.
Greases and lubricants sales among select automotive retail chains reached $228.1 million for the 52 weeks through the end of April, compared to $195 million for the same period ending in April last year, according to Circana’s Retail Tracking Service, which aggregates point-of-sale results for select retail auto parts, mass, club and e-commerce chains in the United States.
That was a much larger jump than the prior year period. The $195 million figure for the period ended April 30 last year was a 5% uptick from $185.3 million for the 52 weeks ending May 1, 2021.
Sales of transmission fluids at the select automotive retail chains increased to $309.5 million for the 52 weeks ending April 29, compared to $280 million.
The $280 million in transmission fluid sales for the period ending in April 2022 was an 8% increase from $263.6 million for the period ending May 1, 2021.
The retail tracking service uses item-level point-of-sale information collected from 115,000 aftermarket retail outlets on a weekly basis to provide a “common currency” of performance for the automotive aftermarket.
The Circana Retail Tracking Service data was published in the Auto Care Association’s 2024 Auto Care Factbook report.