AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
By Jeremy Anwyl September 20, 2011
Last Friday, I tweeted that September’s Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) of car sales was running at around 12.6 million vehicles. On Monday morning, I talked with a few dealers. Their general sense is that weekend sales were relatively strong as well.
A couple months back, I was thinking that consumers who had deferred buying a vehicle in the spring -- put off by concerns over supply and pricing -- would be back in the fall when the market conditions improved. But in July, the debt ceiling negotiations, the U.S. credit downgrade, the resultant financial markets roller coaster rides and fears over European sovereign debt default conspired to weigh heavily on consumer confidence. How badly -- if at all -- would all of these factors pull down vehicle sales is a question we expected to at least partially answer this month.
Let’s put this into context. Sales in the first quarter were hovering around 13 million SAAR. The March 11 earthquake in Japan and the resultant supply disruptions and price hikes pushed sales down into the high 11 million to 12 million SAAR range. A 12.6 million SAAR is certainly above recent lows. That has to be good news. Even surprisingly good, considering how the media are obsessing over the economy. But there are a couple of reasons for caution when looking deeper. Consider the changes in share when compared with the same time period in August:
The obvious standout is Honda with a 17-percent jump. Hence my caution. Honda was hardest hit with supply disruptions and pricing issues and its recovery has been the slowest. Honda shipments have started to improve. It seems clear that Honda has a waiting list of buyers that dealers are working through – some of them created by the Honda Promise that allowed consumers to take advantage of special promotions before the vehicles arrived on dealer lots this fall. As deliveries continue to improve and the waiting list is worked through, I would expect Honda sales to slow.
So a sales pace of 12.6 could be worse. It shows that many consumers are shrugging off the waves of economic fears that the media send crashing against them. But unless something changes, that data suggest that vehicle sales aren't jumping back above 13 million SAAR anytime soon.
Jeremy Anwyl: Chief Executive Officer of Edmunds.com. Follow @JeremyAnwyl on Twitter.
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