Light Vehicle Retail Sales Down by 38%

This piece of news may not be surprising but it is really the figures that should be taken into consideration. As far as light vehicle sales are concerned, sales for the first 22 days of February were down nearly 38 percent compared with the same period one year ago, according to J.D. Power and Associates, which gathers real-time transaction data from more than 10,000 dealerships across the United States.

February’s new-vehicle retail sales are expected to come in at 580,000 units, down 34 percent compared to 913,000 units a year ago, with the volume adjusted for differences in the numbers of selling days for each period.

To better reflect consumer demand for new vehicles, J.D. Power and Associates focuses on retail sales, which include only dealership sales and leases to private parties and do not include fleet sales.

Total sales for the month of February are forecasted to come in at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) of 9.1 million units. This represents a 39 percent decline from one year ago, but a 14 percent gain from January 2009, selling day adjusted.

(Source) Press