“Although the industry has become accustomed to dealing with adversity in recent years, the CDK cyberattack was another curve ball that disrupted activity on a number of levels during June. Many dealers that use CDK’s software found it difficult to conduct normal business operations, although reports suggest that workarounds were found in many cases,” said David Oakley, Manager, Americas Sales Forecasts, GlobalData.

US inventory likely ended June at just above 2.7 million units, on par with the level seen last month, but an increase of nearly 42% from June 2023. Days’ supply is expected to be at 50 days, which is the same as last month. With recovery from the cyberattack expected to be robust in July, inventory will contract more than typical during the month’s summer production shutdown for some of the domestic manufacturers. Production levels are expected to resume some inventory rebuilding in August and will be managed to demand through the remainder of 2024.

“The sales data also supports this idea of resilience, as volumes were certainly not as low as might have been the case, especially given that the attack occurred on June 19th and affected the busiest weeks of the month, as well as a quarter end. Still, there was undoubtedly a negative impact for some OEMs, as we would have expected sales to grow modestly YoY had the cyberattack not happened. Some buyers may have chosen to defer their purchase until the issue was resolved, but with the restoration of systems expected imminently, we anticipate that most of the lost sales will be recovered in July,” said Oakley.