TrueCar Forecasts June Auto Sales and Incentives Spending

Recaps Sales and Incentive Spending for the First Half of 2010

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Jun 24, 2010, 08:50 ET

SANTA MONICA, Calif., June 24 /PRNewswire/ -- TrueCar.com, the authority on new car pricing, forecasted today that June 2010 light vehicle sales (including fleet) in the U.S. is expected to be 985,266 units, an increase of 14.8% from this time last year but a drop of 10.5% from May 2010 (on an unadjusted basis). June's forecast translates into a SAAR level of 11.1 million new car sales.

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The industry average incentive spending per unit will be approximately $2,870 in June, which represents a 1.1% increase from May and a 6.2% jump from this time last year.

With June marking the midpoint of the year, TrueCar is also offering a snapshot of the first half of 2010. Based on the first five months of actual sales and TrueCar's forecast for June, total industry sales will be up 17% compared to the first half of 2009. Meanwhile, the industry average incentive spending per unit will be down 5% for the same time period.

"In light of what we have observed to this point in 2010, we are now downgrading our annual forecast from 11.9 million to 11.6," said Jesse Toprak, VP of Industry Trends and Insight for TrueCar.com. "The negative impact on consumer confidence caused by the volatility in the financial markets limited what otherwise would have been a more robust recovery so far this year."

Toprak added: "However, higher sales and lower incentive spending levels compared to the first half of 2009 clearly indicate that consumer demand is getting stronger. We were able to jumpstart the car, we just don't seem to be able to get it going over 25 mph."

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

All of GM's individual brands showed tremendous growth in the last month, when compared to a lackluster last June for the company. GMC (42.9%) led the way with Buick (42.5%), Chevrolet (40.3%) and Cadillac (34.5%) following closely behind.
Sales of American cars are up nearly 19%, which is tops among the identified manufacturing regions of the world. South Korea is up 13%, Japan is up 12.3% and Europe follows at 6.2%.
Highest per vehicle incentives were offered by Lincoln ($5,395), Volvo ($5,141) and Infiniti ($4,720). Scion offered the lowest incentives per unit at $794, preceded on the list by Subaru at $1,521 and smart at $1,525.

Forecasts for the top seven manufacturers for June:

Unit Sales Forecast
Manufacturer	June 2010 Forecast	Change vs. May 2010	Change vs. June 2009
Chrysler	90,481	-13.7%	32.5%
Ford	172,880	-10.0%	16.9%
GM	199,149	-10.3%	15.2%
Honda	104,952	-10.4%	4.5%
Nissan	74,675	-10.9%	28.1%
Toyota	142,241	-12.6%	8.0%
Hyundai/Kia	73,184	-9.1%	13.0%

Market Share Forecast
Manufacturer	June 2010 Forecast	May 2010	June 2009
Chrysler	9.2%	9.5%	8.0%
Ford	17.6%	17.4%	17.2%
GM	20.2%	20.2%	20.1%
Honda	10.7%	10.6%	11.7%
Nissan	7.6%	7.6%	6.8%
Toyota	14.4%	14.8%	15.3%
Hyundai/Kia	7.4%	7.3%	7.6%

Incentive Spending Forecast
Manufacturer	June 2010 Incentives	Change vs. May 2010	Change vs. June 2009	Total Incentive Spending
Chrysler	$3,676	0.2%	-5.3%	$332,622,411
Ford	$3,034	-0.7%	11.1%	$524,559,596
GM	$3,404	-8.7%	-4.8%	$677,943,914
Honda	$1,993	-6.4%	25.8%	$209,191,343
Nissan	$3,137	0.5%	8.4%	$234,249,013
Toyota	$2,236	16.3%	33.2%	$318,077,531
Hyundai/Kia	$2,384	15.3%	5.5%	$174,473,376
Industry	$2,870	1.1%	6.2%	$2,828,086,963

When looking at total sales for the first half 2010 versus 2009, Ford overtook the number 2 spot from Toyota and narrowed the gap with GM. The only other ranking change was Nissan reclaiming the number 6 spot from Hyundai/Kia. Additionally, Toyota will have the smallest year-over-year increase of any major manufacturer.

First Half 2010 Sales*
Manufacturer	1H 2010	1H 2009	Change 1H 2010 vs 1H 2009
GM	1,078,800	935,941	15.3%
Ford	955,331	743,496	28.5%
Toyota	848,925	770,449	10.2%
Honda	592,234	530,778	11.6%
Chrysler	525,218	471,197	11.5%
Nissan	450,437	347,744	29.5%
Hyundai/Kia	415,925	352,090	18.1%
Industry	5,611,612	4,800,389	16.9%

First Half 2010 Per Unit Incentives Spending*
Manufacturer	1H 2010	1H 2009	Change 1H 2010 vs 1H 2009
Chrysler	$3,611	$4,349	-17.0%
GM	$3,378	$3,401	-0.7%
Nissan	$3,094	$2,880	7.4%
Ford	$2,961	$2,951	0.3%
Hyundai/Kia	$2,132	$3,549	-39.9%
Toyota	$2,001	$1,606	24.6%
Honda	$1,953	$1,696	15.2%
Industry	$2,757	$2,905	-5.1%

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.

*based on actual sales from January to May, 2010 and the TrueCar June Forecast

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