TrueCar Forecasts August Auto Sales and Incentives Spending

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Aug. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- TrueCar.com, the authority on new car pricing, today released its August 2010 sales and incentives forecast.  The forecast shows the following:

• August 2010 light vehicle sales (including fleet) in the U.S. is expected to be 1,015,242 units, a drop of nearly 20% from this time last year and of 3% from July 2010 (on an unadjusted basis)
• The August forecast translates into a SAAR level of 11.68 million new car sales (TrueCar utilizes the most recent BAE seasonality factors, updated this month)
• Retail sales are down 27% compared to August 2009 and down 7% compared to July 2010
• Fleet and rental sales are expected to make up 17% of total industry sales
• The industry average incentive spending per unit will be approximately $2,864 in August, which represents a 1% raise from July but a 13% leap from this time last year

"The pace of improvement in new vehicle sales has not been as robust as we predicted at the beginning of the year," said Jesse Toprak, VP of Industry Trends and Insight for TrueCar.com. "The auto industry needs a catalyst for a sustainable higher level of sales, without which we will continue to struggle every month to reach 12 million SAAR.  Low consumer confidence remains as the main counter-force for a healthy recovery."

TrueCar.com is reporting the following about sales and incentive spending in August:

• Honda is the only major auto manufacturer with an increase in sales from last month.
• Hyundai/Kia market share reaches record level at 8.7%.
• Incentive spending was up 13% over last year, with Honda increasing spending by 66%.
• Automotive manufacturers spent more than $2.9 billion in various incentive programs in August.

Forecasts for the top seven manufacturers for August:

TrueCar.com also projects sales down to the brand level, which can be viewed in its entirety at the Truth Blog on TrueCar.com.  Brand level incentive spending forecasts are available upon request.

TrueCar.com bases its forecast on actual transaction data.  The transaction data based forecast is refined by other current and historical factors that impact vehicle sales, including:  sales, inventory, incentives, fuel prices, and macro economic data (major stock market indexes, consumer confidence, new home starts, and CPI).  TrueCar.com does not adjust for selling days in year-over-year percentage change calculations.

About TrueCar

TrueCar is the authority in new car prices.  We show car buyers and car dealers how much people actually paid for a particular car in a specific local area.  With TrueCar pricing, both new car buyers and new car dealers can know at any time what is considered a good or great price on a new car. Consumers no longer need to walk into a dealership partially informed and fully suspicious – using TrueCar they walk in knowing the price of a fair deal. Dealers benefit by TrueCar's real-time, unbiased information about marketplace pricing, helping them price cars for increased sales, and ultimately gaining market share over other dealers.  Our innovative new car pricing service is offered free of charge on our website at www.truecar.com, on our mobile site at mobile.truecar.com, and via syndication of our tools and pricing data to leading automotive research sites throughout the web. 

About TrueCar Data

TrueCar obtains data directly from car dealers, respected dealer management system (DMS) providers, and well-known data aggregators within the automotive space. We also acquire vehicle configuration data, customer and dealer incentives data, financing and loan data, vehicle registration and insurance data, and much, much more.  TrueCar is insatiable about data with our goal to find 100% of all purchase transactions, even if that means finding the same transaction multiple times from multiple sources within the car-buying ecosystem.  Our data is among the most timely and comprehensive in the industry, as we are able to process most car sales within a week of the actual sales date, and have a substantial fraction on the site within 48 hours of the actual sale.  TrueCar believes the greater our informational accuracy, the greater benefit we provide to both dealers and consumers.

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Jesse Toprak

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SOURCE TrueCar.com