Friday, July 1, 2016

U.S. Auto Sales on Track for Best June Since 2005

Ford Motor said this morning that its U.S. sales rose 6.4 percent to 240,109 vehicles in June, helped by strong consumer demand for its trucks.

General Motors, the biggest U.S. automaker, said its sales fell 1.6 percent to 255,210 vehicles due to lower sales of Buick and GMC vehicles.

However, GM Chief Economist Mustafa Mohatarem said historically low interest rates, stable fuel prices, rising wages and near-full employment would drive strong auto sales in the second half of the year.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said June sales rose 7 percent to 197,073, driven by its Jeep brand.

Nissan Group sales rose 13 percent to 140,553, led by higher demand for its Frontier pickups and Rogue crossover SUVs.

Overall strong sales put the U.S. auto industry on track to record its best June in more than a decade despite a dip in sales at General Motors.

This is not what a recession looks like.

-RW

6 comments:

  1. For July 4th promotion, GM is offering 20% discount from MSRP on most 2016 Chevys , Buicks and GM trucks . Maybe their sales are high, but their margins must be suffering from such a deep discounts . Loosening of credit standards and longer payment terms are also contributing to higher sales .

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  2. Interesting. Econoday says it's not so good.


    "The first hard look at consumer spending in June is negative as unit vehicle sales fell a very sharp 4.6 percent to a 16.7 million annualized rate which, outside of March's 16.6 million, is the lowest rate since April last year. Sales of North American-made vehicles fell 3.7 percent to a 13.2 million pace from 13.7 million with imports down 5.4 percent to 3.5 million. Data on cars and light truck show similar declines. These results are worrisome, suggesting that consumer spending, which surged in April and proved strong in May, may have slowed sharply in June. Today's results point to a decline for motor vehicle sales in the June retail sales report, a component that showed strength in the two prior months and was a regular source of retail strength during 2015."

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  3. JD Power did say they had to give away $3278 to shift those vehicles.

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  4. Auto sales in the Houston area are extremely strong as back to back floods destroyed many cars.

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  5. This would seem to show just the opposite for June sales:

    https://mishtalk.com/2016/07/01/final-june-2016-auto-numbers-much-worse-than-expected/

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