US auto sales in the first half of January were on pace for a SAAR of 12.1m, down “significantly” from last month’s SAAR of 13.5m, Edmunds.com said.
“January’s sales decline suggests that the ‘mini bubble’ of deferred sales from last summer is already deflating,” Edmunds’ vice-president Jeremy Anwyl said in a blog last night (23 January).
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“Edmunds.com expected the market to start moving in this direction, but the news might come as a surprise to some in the industry who thought that the industry’s strong finish in 2011 would continue unabated into 2012.”
Anwyl suggested two reasons for the slip. “One was benign – that early January sales “slipped” into the 2011 year-end totals (and obviously couldn’t be counted twice as January sales). In other words, the drop was just a statistical anomaly.
“The other explanation was that it was the high rate of sales the industry enjoyed in November and December that were the anomaly; a limited boost from buyers returning to market after the difficult conditions we saw over the summer.”
Anwyl said Edmunds’ latest data for January so far shows sales are now running at a pace of 640,000 retail sales, a SAAR of 9.8m, compared with retail sales of 1.009m and a SAAR of 10.9m SAAR in December.
“If we assume a fleet mix of around 19.5% — slightly higher than December — then total sales for January will end up around 795k, and a SAAR of 12.1m” [vs 1.244m sales and a SAAR of 13.5m last month].”
Looking at retail share, compared to the same period last month, Anwyl noted that BMW and Mercedes-Benz were down significantly while both, especially BMW, were strong at the beginning of December. Hyundai and Kia, Nissan, and Honda were up in January though all three were relatively weak in the same period last month.
