Those tracking sales for Automakers got good news from July. This continues a positive trend that we noted recently (http://www.dashboard-insights.com/2013/06/24/automotive-economic-indicators-show-promise/#more-). Strong sales now project to hit levels not seen since 2007. Many of the statistics have been reported all over, so we thought that we would highlight a few that we here at the Dashboard found most notable:
- 1.3 Million cars and trucks were sold in July 2013 – a 14% increase over July 2012.
- At the current pace, 15.8 million vehicles will be sold in 2013, the most since 16.1 million were sold in 2007.
- Every major automaker reported double digit gains for July 2013 sales compared to July 2012.
- Adjustments made by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis to the Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) for April increased SARR to 15.19 million (from 14.91) – April had been the only month of 2013 to have a SAAR under 15 million.
In fact, the industry is optimistic that this is only the beginning. Analysts have noted that these strong sales were pushed by consumers in the retail segment, while fleet and rental car sales were stagnant, but are expected to increase in the latter half of 2013. Additionally, truck sales tend to be higher in the second half of the year, but already show strong sales in 2013 because of the recovering construction industry. Further, sales could have been even higher but inventories could not keep up with demand. The sales numbers and projections made Wall Street bullish on automotive stocks as the major OEM’s saw their share prices rise in response to the news.