Forecasters Expect Extremely Strong March
This coming Monday, new car sales for March will be announced. Forecasters increasingly are of the opinion that March will look like carmageddon never happened. Real-time data equipped TrueCar has released its opinions. Here are the highlights:
- For March 2012, new light vehicle sales in the U.S. (including fleet) is expected to be 1,416,703 units, up 13.7 percent from March.
- The March 2012 forecast translates into a Seasonally Adjusted Annualized Rate (SAAR) of 14.5 million new car sales, up from 13.1 million in March 2011 and down from 15.1 million in February 2012.
- The industry average incentive spending per unit will be approximately $2,440 in March 2012, which represents a decrease of 1.5 percent from February 2012 and decrease of 1.7 percent from March 2011.
Says Jesse Toprak, Vice President of Market Intelligence for TrueCar:
“We are looking at a record-breaking month for many manufacturers in March with Hyundai, Nissan and Volkswagen expected to have their highest unit sales ever in the U.S.We also forecast that Chrysler, Ford, GM, Honda and Toyota will have an extremely strong month, with some of the highest unit sales in years. Due to stronger than expected recovery, we’ve increased our sales forecast another 3.6 percent, from 14.0 million unit sales to 14.5 million unit sales in 2012.“
TrueCar Forecasts for the top eight manufacturers for March 2012
ManufacturerMarch ForecastYoYChrysler160,25631.20%Ford215,1821.40%GM249,88720.90%Honda145,5948.90%Hyundai/Kia126,35119.10%Nissan129,1886.60%Toyota195,29810.80%Volkswagen49,22533.10%Industry1,416,70313.70%TrueCar Market Share Forecasts for March 2012
ManufacturerMarch ForecastFeb-12Mar-11Chrysler11.30%11.70%9.80%Ford15.20%15.50%17.00%GM17.60%18.20%16.60%Honda10.30%9.60%10.70%Hyundai/Kia8.90%8.40%8.50%Nissan9.10%9.30%9.70%Toyota13.80%13.90%14.10%Volkswagen3.50%3.40%3.00%TrueCar Incentive Spending Forecasts for March 2012
ManufacturerMarch ’12MoMYoYChrysler$3,137-1.80%5.60%Ford$2,726-3.80%-2.80%GM$3,1440.90%-5.10%Honda$2,122-0.20%-8.10%Hyundai/Kia$8824.80%-30.60%Nissan$3,115-3.70%28.00%Toyota$1,7045.20%-13.50%Volkswagen$2,021-2.70%4.50%Industry$2,440-1.50%-1.70%With 1.42 million cars for March, TrueCar is relatively conservative. Kelley forecasted 1.43 million. TrueCar’s colleagues at Edmunds forecast 1.44 million. Edmunds will supply an updated forecast on Thursday.
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Toyota and Honda should show some really big YoY numbers starting next month for the next six months or so as they will be compared against last year earthquake/tsunami numbers. Although it happened in March 2011, it shouldn't reflect in these numbers as inventory wasn't adversely impacted until May. Anything on the six week boat ride from factory to dealer was already off the shore in March last year. We'll see if GM really hits that 20.8% number.
Does VW even belong on this list? There seems to be quite a gap between Hyundai at 8.5% market share, and VW at 3%. Are there other makers in between? I'm not sure where brands like Mazda, Subaru, etc. sit but I would think there must be someone between VW and Hyundai...