SANTA MONICA, Calif. -

Though stronger than where it was in May, the used-vehicle market will show a major dive from year-ago figures once June results are reported, according to TrueCar.com. The company projects that used sales will slide 21.8 percent to 4.38 million units.

This, however, would mark a 6.2-percent sequential increase.

On the new side of the market, things seem brighter.

It appears that May was the industry’s new-vehicle sales trough and that the rest of the year should see stronger results, TrueCar said. That is certainly expected to be the case for June, with TrueCar forecasting a seasonally adjusted annualized rate exceeding 12 million units.

TrueCar predicts that there will be 1.12 million new sales (including both retail and fleet) when June results are finalized. Compared to a year ago, this represents a 13.5-percent improvement. Moreover, this would be 5.3-percent stronger than May’s new sales.

The resulting SAAR would be 12.17 million vehicles, compared to 11.83 million units last month and 11.16 million a year ago.

“Uncertainty in the economy, as well as high gas prices and shortages in small-car inventory contributed to the limited gains in sales in June,” explained Jesse Toprak, TrueCar’s vice president of industry trends and insights. “May appeared to be the low point in vehicle sales this year, and we don’t expect sales to go below 11.9 million SAAR level.”

Breaking TrueCar’s projections down further, the firm is predicting a 12.1-percent year-over-year rise in retail sales, which are likely to climb 5.5 percent month-over-month.

Meanwhile, market share for the fleet and retail segment is likely to hit 22 percent, TrueCar noted.

GM Leads Market-Share Forecast

Among the seven largest OEMs, General Motors is projected to command the heftiest market share in June at 19.9 percent, followed by Ford at 17.6 percent.

Toyota will likely rank third (11.3 percent), with Chrysler in fourth (11.1 percent).

Hyundai/Kia (10.7 percent), Honda (8.2 percent) and Nissan (7.2 percent) round out the list.

Expected to show the most improvement year-over-year for new-car sales is Hyundai, jumping 43.1 percent to 118,909 vehicles sold.

As they continue to bounce back from the Japanese disasters earlier this year, Honda (down 13.9 percent) and Toyota (down 10.2 percent) are the only two of the seven OEMs forecasted to see a decline in sales from June 2010.

All seven automakers are predicted to show improvement from May, however, with Toyota (up 16.5 percent) leading the charge.

Incentive Spending

Moving along, TrueCar also shared a few details about monthly incentive spending. The company believes per-unit incentive spending will hit a more-than-five-year low at $2,300. This would represent a 0.2-percent sequential decrease and a 19.8-percent year-over-year decline.

All seven OEMs are projected to see year-over-year incentive cutbacks exceeding 20 percent for June. Ford, for one, is said to have had its smallest incentive spending in almost nine years, with Chrysler seeing a more than eight-year low.

Meanwhile, on a month-over-month basis, only the three Japanese automakers are showing a lift.

Honda is projected to climb 4.5 percent, with Nissan at 7.8 percent and Toyota at 9.3 percent.

"Industry incentive spending is flat compared to last month and is at its lowest level in more than five years, domestics continue to trim incentive spending dramatically with Ford having its lowest incentive spend since September 2002, while Chrysler had its lowest since February 2003,” Toprak shared.