Sales for subcompacts such as the Ford Fiesta are expected to be up 25 percent year over year for September.
Car sales have held steady during September, climbing by double digits from year ago levels.
TrueCar.com said September 2012 new light vehicle sales in the U.S. are expected to be up 10.5 percent from September 2011. The September 2012 forecast translates into a Seasonally Adjusted Annualized Rate or SAAR of 14.6 million new car sales, up from 13.1 million in September 2011 and up from 14.5 million in August 2012 .
The industry average incentive spending per unit will be approximately $2,468 in September 2012, which represents an decrease of 6.7 percent from September 2011 and decrease of 1.2 percent from August 2012.
“The SAAR range so far this year has been one of the tightest in the recent history, ranging in-between 13.8 and 15.1 million,” said Jesse Toprak, Vice President of Market Intelligence at TrueCar.com. “Even though the lack of big movements in car sales makes for less attractive headlines, the stable growth in sales is a positive for the industry. The stability allows for the right production adjustments and price optimization, resulting in improved profitability.”
With vehicle inventory levels in check, fleet sales in September are projected to reach 200,400 units, only a slight increase from September 2011, and represent 17 percent of total light-vehicle sales, according to J.D Power & Associates and LMC indicated in a new forecast on the outlook for September.
“Retail sales in early September were 15 percent higher than they were a year ago, which is reflective of a healthy market,” said John Humphrey, senior vice president of global automotive operations at J.D. Power and Associates. “We expect retail sales to level off through the rest of the month, but still maintain a strong share of total sales.”
Humphrey said most major segments — with the exception of the midsize sport utility and large pickup segments — are expected to show year-over-year retail sales gains in September.
The sub-compact conventional, compact conventional and midsize conventional segments each are expected to show retail sales growth of at least 25 percent, compared with September 2011.
Meanwhile, LMC Automotive is maintaining the 2012 full-year outlook for total light-vehicle sales in the United States at 14.3 million units. The retail sales forecast is revised upward to 11.6 million units from 11.4 million units, based on stronger retail performance during the past two months.
Jeff Schuster, senior vice president of forecasting at LMC Automotive, said looking ahead to 2013, a higher level of uncertainty is impacting overall volume growth. But LMC is still predicting overall sales of light-duty vehicles will expand in 2013 to 15 million units for total light-vehicles and 12.3 million for retail sales.
“Consumer willingness or need to overlook the economic uncertainty is the driving force behind the recent strength in light-vehicle sales,” Schuster said.