October light vehicle sales in the US will total 1,229,860 new cars and trucks for an estimated Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) of 15.5m, Edmunds.com forecast. Projected sales will up 8.2% month on month and 12.7% year on year.
The overall sales projections suggest that the government shutdown earlier this month had minimal effect on auto sales. But Edmunds reckoned a longer shutdown “could have left an ugly mark on what has been otherwise a glowing year for the automotive industry”.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
“It looks like the government shutdown ended just in the nick of time,” said senior analyst Jessica Caldwell. “The week by week data suggests that consumers started to get jittery by the middle of the month. But with the government back to work, most lost sales should be made up in the latter half of the month, and the industry’s momentum will continue the pace it enjoyed before the disruption in Washington.”
Edmunds estimates that retail SAAR will come in at 13m vehicles in October with fleet transactions accounting for 16% of sales. An estimated 3.06m used cars will be sold in October, for a SAAR of 35.6m (compared to 3.02m – or a SAAR of 36.3m – used car sales in September).
Automakers
While most major automakers are expected to easily clear September’s sales totals, Edmunds projects Chrysler sales will fall 2.2% month to month. As a result, the company’s market share will recede 1.2 percentage points in October, just one month after it hit its highest share in over five years.
General Motors, meanwhile, is expected to create a little breathing room at the top of the sales standings. Edmunds projects GM sales will increase 15% from September to October, outpacing top rival Ford’s growth of 5.2%. In September, Ford finished within almost 3,000 sales of GM’s total, and nearly claimed its first head to head victory since March 2011.
