SANTA MONICA, Calif. -
Used-vehicle sales in January are expected to show a year-over-year gain and approach 2 million units sold, according to TrueCar.com, which predicts new-vehicle sales will improve double digits.
Specifically, TrueCar anticipates there will be 1.97 million used units moved by the end of January, representing a 5-percent year-over-year gain and a 30-percent sequential decrease. Officials noted that this estimation includes used sales of franchise and independent dealers as well as private-party sales.
As far as new-vehicle sales (including fleet/rental), TrueCar believes these will hit 825,372 vehicles sold. This marks an 18-percent year-over-year spike and a 28-percent month-over-month dip.
The seasonally adjusted annualized rate for new-vehicle sales is expected to reach 12.71 million vehicles. In December, the SAAR was 12.55 million. The January 2010 SAAR was 10.82 million.
Breaking it down, retail new-vehicle sales are likely to climb 25 percent year-over-year, while falling 28 percent compared with December.
The fleet/rental share of the new-vehicle market is expected to hit 19 percent.
Officials stressed that year-over-year comparisons are not seasonally adjusted.
“2011 is off to a good start as the continued increase in retail sales from the same time period last year indicates that consumers are coming back to the showrooms,” pointed out Jesse Toprak, TrueCar’s vice president of industry trends and insight.
“The recovery in auto sales is fueled not only by pent-up demand but also by compelling new products and relative improvements in consumer confidence,” he added.
Looking at individual automakers, Toyota is expected to show the most improvement from a year ago (29 percent), followed closely by Honda.
GM is expected to command the most market share (21 percent).
Moving along, TrueCar also delved into incentive spending.
Overall, the incentive levels for the month are expected to hit $2,576 spent per unit. This is down almost 3 percent month-over-month and an increase of 1 percent year-over-year.
Total incentive spending for the month is projected to come in at $2.13 billion. Among the top seven OEMs, Chrysler is expected to show the heftiest per-unit spending at $3,557, while General Motors is forecasted to show the highest total amount overall at $492.87 million.