It looks like US January new vehicle sales at 1.1 million would be a -30.2% decrease from December if the forecast is accurate for an estimated Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) of 17.5 million. If true that would be a -0.5% decrease from January 2015. While winter weather is being blamed by analysts, AutoInformed thinks the heavy discounting in December is also a major factor in the sales slump.
Edmunds.com estimates that the retail SAAR will come in at 14.1 million vehicles in January, with fleet transactions accounting for 19.5% of total sales. An estimated 3.05 million used cars will be sold in January, for a SAAR of 38.5 million (compared to 2.6 million – or a SAAR of 37.9 million – used car sales in December).
