New Vehicle Retail Demand Slumping, Edmunds Forecasts

Staff Report

Thursday, April 27th, 2017

Edmunds, the leading car shopping and information platform, forecasts that 1,431,695 new cars and trucks will be sold in the U.S. in April for an estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate of 17.0 million. This reflects nearly an 8 percent decrease in sales from March 2017, and a 4 percent decrease from April 2016.

"The industry has been holding its breath to see if the days of peak sales are over, and while Q1 sales managed to remain stable, we're starting to see the slowdown in 2017 we've been anticipating," said Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds executive director of industry analysis. "These year-over-year declines may become more typical as the year progresses, but there's no reason to be in panic mode. Historically, car sales are still strong."

SALES VOLUME FORECAST, BY MANUFACTURER

Sales Volume

April 2017 Forecast

April 2016

March 2017

Change from April 2016

Change from March 2017

GM

250,078

259,557

256,224

-3.7%

-2.4%

Ford

216,438

229,739

234,895

-5.8%

-7.9%

Toyota

201,031

211,125

215,224

-4.8%

-6.6%

Fiat Chrysler

180,419

189,005

190,254

-4.5%

-5.2%

Honda

138,813

148,829

137,227

-6.7%

1.2%

Nissan

123,714

123,861

168,832

-0.1%

-26.7%

Hyundai/Kia

112,719

118,721

118,694

-5.1%

-5.0%

VW/Audi

43,376

44,913

46,340

-3.4%

-6.4%

Industry

1,431,695

1,491,901

1,549,991

-4.0%

-7.6%

*NOTE: April 2017 had 26 selling days, April 2016 had 27 and March 2016 had 27.

Edmunds estimates that retail SAAR will come in at 13.6 million vehicles in April 2017, with fleet transactions accounting for 19.5 percent of total sales. An estimated 3.6 million used vehicles will be sold in April 2017, for a SAAR of 38.4 million (compared to 3.4 million – or a SAAR of 38.4 million – in March).

MARKET SHARE FORECAST, BY MANUFACTURER

Market Share

April 2017 Forecast

April 2016

March 2017

Change from April 2016

Change from March 2017

GM

17.5%

17.4%

16.5%

0.1%

0.9%

Ford

15.1%

15.4%

15.2%

-0.3%

0.0%

Toyota

14.0%

14.2%

13.9%

-0.1%

0.2%

Fiat Chrysler

12.6%

12.7%

12.3%

-0.1%

0.3%

Honda

9.7%

10.0%

8.9%

-0.3%

0.8%

Nissan

8.6%

8.3%

10.9%

0.3%

-2.3%

Hyundai/Kia

7.9%

8.0%

7.7%

-0.1%

0.2%

VW/Audi

3.0%

3.0%

3.0%

0.0%

0.0%