The U.S. auto industry has a head of steam that is expected to show again in January new-vehicle sales to be reported Tuesday.
Forecasters say the first monthly sales tally this year will be about 14% better than the year-ago number, and will translate to a strong, seasonally adjusted annual rate of about 16.6 million or 16.7 million.
For all of 2014, automakers sold 16.52 million new cars and trucks, up 5.9% from 15.6 million in 2013, according to sales tracker Autodata.
"The sales momentum seen throughout 2014 is continuing into 2015," said John Humphrey, senior vice president of the global automotive practice at consultant J.D. Power. Power forecast sales this year will total 17 million — most optimistic of the forecasts.
Since surviving the recession and 2009 bankruptcy reorganizations of General Motors and Chrysler Group — now part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles — the industry has enjoyed dramatic sales increases that have resulted in adding shifts, hiring workers and overhauling factories to build more vehicles.
January usually is the year's lowest month in total sales because of "weather, holiday spending hangover and lower incentive offers," notes auto shopping and research site TrueCar.com. And, indeed, raw sales are expected to come in 20% short of the December total. But they should be healthy compared with other January totals over the years on the seasonally adjusted calculus.
"Automakers rely on delivering a higher portion of fleet sales in the month to offset slower retail activity," said John Krafcik, TrueCar's president. "This January the industry may have caught a break as we've avoided the kind of substantial storms that are a drag on sales, particularly when they hit on a weekend."
Except for the New England blizzard, of course, but it's unclear how much impact that will have.
Ford is expected to report the biggest year-over-year gain — 17.8%, Edmunds says — as supplies of its new-design F-150 pickup improve.
More important to car companies than sales totals, however, is how much it cost to sell those vehicles, and whether they were high-profit, well-equipped models, or lower-end vehicles for value hunters. And the outlook there is good.
"Our projected revenue growth of 4.8% is the result of increasing sales volume and rising average transaction prices," said Eric Lyman, vice president of industry insights for TrueCar. Incentive spending by automakers averaged $2,642 per vehicle in January, up 3.6% from a year ago, but down 10.4% from December 2014, TrueCar calculates.
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Source : http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/02/01/auto-sales-january-preview/22593709/
