TrueCar Predicts November’s Used- and New-Vehicle Sales Results

As November gets ready to draw to a close with Thanksgiving tomorrow, TrueCar decided to announce its sales expectations for the month, covering both used- and new-vehicle sales results.

The site is projecting that used sales will reach almost 2.6 million units, which would be almost unchanged from the year-ago period and less than 1 percent stronger compared to October.

As for new-vehicle sales, these are likely to improve double digits and reach 868,283 units sold (including fleet). This would be a 16-percent year-over-year gain, despite being down about 9 percent sequentially.

The resulting seasonally adjusted annualized rate would be 12.23 million units, versus 10.92 million a year ago. The October SAAR for new-vehicle sales was 12.25 million.

“Several consecutive months of year-over-year retail sales improvements indicate that the recovery in consumer demand has not been a coincidence,” explained TrueCar vice president of industry trends and insight Jesse Toprak.

“We have high expectations for December sales as year-end clearance events should drive the industry to its best unit sales total of the year,” he continued. “Based on this rising demand — as well as a slew of new products that will be hitting the marketplace — we have raised our 2011 forecast to 12.7 million units.”

Looking at retail new-vehicle sales, TrueCar is predicting close to a 17-percent year-over-year hike and a 9-percent month-over-month dip.

Continuing on, TrueCar said the portion of total November sales that fleet and rental sales command is likely to be about one-fifth (21 percent).

Among the top seven automakers, the OEM likely to show the biggest year-over-year leap in sales is Hyundai/Kia, which is projected to move 66,689 units (up 45 percent from November 2009).

Of these seven automakers, Toyota is the only one predicted to show a sales dip from a year ago. TrueCar anticipates Toyota’s sales will fall 1.7 percent to 131,419 units.

All seven are expected to show softened results from October.

As far as market share, General Motors is expected to lead the way (19.6 percent share), followed by Ford (17.5 percent) and Toyota (15.1 percent).

Honda is likely to command a 10.4-percent share, with Chrysler at 8.6 percent, Hyundai/Kia representing 7.7 percent and Nissan at 7.4 percent.

Moving on, TrueCar also offered a bit of analysis on incentive spending.

For November, it is expected that automakers will spend about $2,712 per unit on incentives, up 6 percent sequentially and 1 percent year-over-year.

Among the seven OEMs covered, Chrysler’s average incentive spending is projected to be the highest ($3,452 per unit). Honda is expected to show the greatest year-over-year hike (up 61.9 percent), with Nissan leading the pack (up 9.2 percent) on a month-over-month basis.

All seven are expected to increase average incentive spending from October, while three — Chrysler, GM and Hyundai/Kia — will likely show a dip on a year-over-year basis, according to the site.

TrueCar illustrated the sales and incentive projections in greater depth with the following charts: