TrueCar Forecasts April Auto Sales and Incentives Spending

Industry Sales Up 23%; Toyota Incentives Reach Record Highs

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Apr 22, 2010, 08:46 ET

SANTA MONICA, Calif., April 22 /PRNewswire/ -- TrueCar.com (www.truecar.com), the authority on new car pricing, forecasted today that April 2010 light vehicle sales (including fleet) in the U.S. is expected to be 1,010,059 units, a drop of 5% from March 2010 but a leap of more than 23% from this time last year (on an unadjusted basis). April's forecast translates into a SAAR level of 11.5 million new car sales.

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According to the experts at TrueCar.com, industry average incentive spending per unit will be approximately $2,800 in April, which represents no change from March 2010 but down 4.4% from this time last year.

TrueCar.com is reporting the following about sales and incentive spending in April:

Nissan, Toyota, Subaru, and Ford are expected to post the largest increase in sales over last year.
Honda is the only major automaker that is forecasted to post a sales increase over March 2010.
Toyota incentives reach their highest levels ever at $2,416 per unit resulting in the biggest year-over-year increase amongst all automakers at 49%.
Automotive manufacturers spent nearly $2.8 billion in various incentive programs in April.

"The automotive industry is in full-blown recovery. In fact, we can expect to see SAAR numbers reaching and exceeding 12 million as we stretch into the summer months," said Jesse Toprak, VP of Industry Trends and Insight for TrueCar.com. "Toyota's generous incentives in April continue to bring consumers back into dealerships; however, the impact of its incentive programs in the marketplace appears to have diminished slightly in April."

Forecasts for the top seven manufacturers for April:

Unit Sales Forecast


Manufacturer	April 2010 Forecast	Change vs. Mar. 2010	Change vs. April 2009
Chrysler	84,902	-8.3%	10.7%
Ford	171,086	-4.0%	32.1%
GM	176,052	-6.2%	3.4%
Honda	111,221	2.7%	10.1%
Nissan	85,175	-10.8%	80.5%
Toyota	175,471	-6.1%	38.7%
Hyundai/Kia	75,161	-3.0%	26.2%

Market Share Forecast


Manufacturer	April 2010 Forecast	March 2010	April 2009
Chrysler	8.4%	8.7%	9.4%
Ford	16.9%	16.7%	15.8%
GM	17.4%	17.6%	20.8%
Honda	11.0%	10.2%	12.3%
Nissan	8.4%	9.0%	5.8%
Toyota	17.4%	17.5%	15.5%
Hyundai/Kia	7.4%	7.3%	7.3%

Incentive Spending Forecast


Manufacturer	April 2010 Incentives	Change vs. Mar. 2010	Change vs. April 2009	Total Incentive Spending
Chrysler	$3,537	-0.8%	-15.8%	$300,305,530
Ford	$2,921	-3.7%	-0.3%	$499,753,803
GM	$3,151	-0.7%	-8.3%	$554,825,434
Honda	$2,102	0.0%	13.7%	$233,771,989
Nissan	$3,101	-3.5%	4.3%	$264,160,113
Toyota	$2,416	5.3%	49.0%	$423,918,856
Hyundai/Kia	$2,204	7.5%	-37.2%	$165,682,222
Industry	$2,798	0.0%	-4.4%	$2,826,636,485

TrueCar also projects sales down to the brand level, which can be viewed in its entirety at the Truth Blog on TrueCar.com. Brand level incentive spending forecasts are available upon request.

TrueCar.com bases its forecast on actual transaction data. The transaction data based forecast is refined by other current and historical factors that impact vehicle sales including: sales, inventory, incentives, fuel prices, and macro economic data (major stock market indexes, consumer confidence, new home starts, and CPI). TrueCar.com does not adjust for selling days in year-over-year percentage change calculations.

About TrueCar

TrueCar is the authority in new car prices. We show car buyers and car dealers how much people actually paid for a particular car in a specific local area. With TrueCar pricing, both new car buyers and new car dealers can know at any time what is considered a good or great price on a new car. Consumers no longer need to walk into a dealership partially informed and fully suspicious – using TrueCar they walk in knowing the price of a fair deal. Dealers benefit by TrueCar's real-time, unbiased information about marketplace pricing, helping them price cars for increased sales, and ultimately gaining market share over other dealers. Our innovative new car pricing service is offered free of charge on our website at www.truecar.com, on our mobile site at mobile.truecar.com, and via syndication of our tools and pricing data to leading automotive research sites throughout the web.

About TrueCar Data

TrueCar obtains data directly from car dealers, respected dealer management system (DMS) providers, and well-known data aggregators within the automotive space. We also acquire vehicle configuration data, customer and dealer incentives data, financing and loan data, vehicle registration and insurance data, and much, much more. TrueCar is insatiable about data with our goal to find 100% of all purchase transactions, even if that means finding the same transaction multiple times from multiple sources within the car-buying ecosystem. Our data is among the most timely and comprehensive in the industry, as we are able to process most car sales within a week of the actual sales date, and have a substantial fraction on the site within 48 hours of the actual sale. TrueCar believes the greater our informational accuracy, the greater benefit we provide to both dealers and consumers.

Available Topic Expert(s): For information on the listed expert(s), click appropriate link.

Jesse Toprak

https://profnet.prnewswire.com/Subscriber/ExpertProfile.aspx?ei=94534

SOURCE TrueCar.com