It will be a suspenseful Monday. When new car sales numbers will be announced for March, I could look like carmageddon never happened. After J.D. Power had predicted sales of 1,372,400 units for March and Kelley Blue Book 1,425,000 units, real-time date equipped Edmunds now sees a total of 1,451,956 new cars changing hands. That would translate into a Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) of 14.9 million units.
Edmunds Sales Projections March
| 12-Mar | 11-Mar | YoY | |
| GM | 249,137 | 206,621 | 20.60% |
| Ford | 222,564 | 212,295 | 4.80% |
| Toyota | 215,122 | 176,222 | 22.10% |
| Chrysler | 164,226 | 121,730 | 34.90% |
| Honda | 139,431 | 133,650 | 4.30% |
| Nissan | 136,812 | 121,141 | 12.90% |
| Industry | 1,451,956 | 1,246,059 | 16.50% |
Edmunds says that loosening credit and a shift to more fuel-efficient small cars drives auto sales to a 16.5 percent increase over March 2011. Says Jessica Caldwell, Senior Analyst at Edmunds.com.
“After delaying purchases over the last couple of years, consumers are eager to jump into the new car market. Vehicle trade-in rates have achieved sustained highs in recent months, which suggests that consumers have decided that they’ve held on to their cars for too long. And with the average credit score for new car buyers at its lowest level since the first half of 2008, the market is clearly becoming a friendlier place for all buyers.”
Edmunds Market Share Projections March
| 12-Mar | 11-Mar | YoY | |
| GM | 17.20% | 16.60% | 0.60% |
| Ford | 15.30% | 17.00% | -1.70% |
| Toyota | 14.80% | 14.10% | 0.70% |
| Chrysler | 11.30% | 9.80% | 1.50% |
| Honda | 9.60% | 10.70% | -1.10% |
| Nissan | 9.40% | 9.70% | -0.30% |
Edmunds sees Chrysler celebrating a one year anniversary of more than ten percent market share. Edmunds predicts Toyota to be the top performer among the Big 3 Japanese automakers, due to healthier inventory and favorable pricing.
It will be interesting to see if this data is what actually happens. This link https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/03/forecasters-expect-extremely-strong-march/#comments
indicates Toyota along with Honda losing market share. Also the Nissan data seems quite different between the realtime analysts. I won`t bet against Edmunds since they were the best last year at predicting the market.
BS – do you think this will last, since you were skeptical about “pent-up demand” in the past.
there’s no doubt about it. the average car age on the road continues to rise while US employment data keep getting better and better. bought a new car early march and dealer says it will be a record month by a significant amount over the prior record.
now in europe? that may be another story.
This is starting to look like Dr Grey’s hurricane predictions for the coming season, lots of guesswork, mostly wrong all the time.