The days of auto sales increasing are reaching their end this month, at least that's what J.D. Power and LMC Automotive think.
This May wasn't this friendly to new car sales, that is why they will fall down to 5.7% from the same month last year. The reason of such a decrease is partly because this year has two fewer selling days. That's how the seasonally adjusted annualized rate will slip to 17.4 million vehicles from 17.71 million in May a year earlier.
This April, had the same adjusted annualized results as this May may have. Because of these running sales, LMC had to lower its full-year U.S. sales forecast by 100,000 vehicles to 17.7 million. Even so, the results stay higher than the record of 17.47 million units set last year. The company also stayed to the supposed overall forecast in 2016, though it said that it will cut the retail sales by 200,000 light vehicles, it considers that an increase in fleet deliveries would make up the difference.
Jeff Schuster, the LMC Automotive head, said that vehicle sales appear to be flattering, which might be driven by an array of variables, one of them of course is slow economic growth and stock market volatility. He also considers that until they won't anticipate a retraction in volume over the next 12-18 months, year-over-year growth won't be coming anytime soon.
The manager of automotive data at J.D. Power thinks there is still a chance that Memorial Day weekend sales may be stronger than now anticipated, of course with one condition- if automakers fatten discounts to lower prices for buyers.
U.S. new-vehicle incentives are averaging $3,052 this year through April, an increase of 14% over 2015 levels. New vehicle sales have risen to 3.3% this year through April, they're on a way to increase for the seventh straight year.
