J.D. Power: October Best Month Of The Year, But Nothing To Write Home About
As Japan stares in the abyss, things are looking up for the U.S. auto market. Traffic at dealers is up, people are buying, cautiously. Based on transaction data from more than 8,900 dealers in the U.S., J.D.Power projects that this October will be the year’s strongest month –but not by a whole lot.
Based on the numbers they have so far, J.D.P. sees total light-vehicle sales in October at 922,700 units, 14 percent higher than October 2009. Fleet sales in October are expected to be up 3 percent from one year ago, representing an 18 percent share of total sales. Power thinks total SAAR will be 11.9m units, up slightly from 11.7m units in December, and up 1.5m units from the dark days of October 2009.
Jeff Schuster of J.D.P. detects signs of strengthening consumer sentiment, despite all odds: “Despite the drag from high unemployment and lower incentive levels, improvement in the automotive market continues in October, suggesting that consumers are discounting the negative sentiment.”
J.D. Power and Associates U.S. Sales and SAAR Comparisons
October 2010September 2010October 2009New-vehicle retail sales756,300 unitsWhat is interesting is the resurgence or retail sales. October is typically a month with a lower level of fleet sales, but this October fleet volume looks like the lowest of the year.
For the year, J.D.P. sees only tepid growth. They revised their total sales outlook for 2010 down to 11.5m units, a bit less than previously thought 11.6m.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Given that the blue cars all appear to be WRXes, and the red ones look like some kind of cruddy '70s coupe, I'm gonna go blue.