Edmunds forecasts best April new-car sales since 2007

(April 29, 2013) SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Edmunds.com forecasts that 1,306,901 new cars and trucks will be sold in the U.S. in April for an estimated Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) of 15.2 million light vehicles. This will be a 10.4 percent increase from April 2012, but a 10 percent decrease from last month.

"We're forecasting the best April car sales since 2007, and that's consistent with the strong growth we've seen in the last several months," says Edmunds.com Senior Analyst Jessica Caldwell. "Sales are almost back to pre-recession levels, so as long as automakers keep reporting their best sales in at least five years, we'll continue to be in good shape."

SALES VOLUME FORECAST, BY MANUFACTURER

Sales Volume Apr-13 Forecast Apr-12 Mar-13 Change from Apr 2012* Change from Mar 2013*
GM 237,835 213,387 245,950 11.5% -3.3%
Ford 208,842 179,658 235,643 16.2% -11.4%
Toyota 183,933 178,044 205,342 3.3% -10.4%
Chrysler Group 156,194 141,165 171,603 10.6% -9.0%
Honda 132,520 122,012 136,038 8.6% -2.6%
Nissan 92,976 71,329 137,726 30.3% -32.5%
Industry 1,306,901 1,183,866 1,452,269 10.4% -10.0%

*NOTE: April 2013 had 25 selling days, April 2012 had 24 and March 2013 had 27.

 Edmunds.com estimates that retail SAAR will come in at 12.4 million vehicles in April, with fleet transactions accounting for 18.7 percent of total sales. An estimated 3.25 million used cars will be sold in April, for a SAAR of 37.0 million (compared to 3.43 million — or a SAAR of 36.7 million — used car sales in March).

Edmunds.com projects that in April Nissan will have a bigger year-over-year sales increase (30.3%) than any other major automaker. Nissan will achieve this distinction despite incurring the biggest sales decrease (-32.5%) of any automaker from March to April. This anomaly can be attributed to Nissan's annual practice of aggressively pushing sales to close out its fiscal year, which ended in March.

MARKET SHARE FORECAST, BY MANUFACTURER

Market Share Apr-13 Forecast Apr-12 Mar-13 Change from April 2012
(Percentage pts.)
Change from March 2013
(Percentage pts.)
GM 18.2% 18.0% 16.9% 0.2% 1.3%
Ford 16.0% 15.2% 16.2% 0.8% -0.2%
Toyota 14.1% 15.0% 14.1% -1.0% -0.1%
Chrysler Group 12.0% 11.9% 11.8% 0.0% 0.1%
Honda 10.1% 10.3% 9.4% -0.2% 0.8%
Nissan 7.1% 6.0% 9.5% 1.1% -2.4%

Edmunds.com also found that even as most automakers manage to increase sales year over year, Hyundai and Kia will stand out in April for delivering fewer sales than in 2012. As a result Hyundai and Kia will see its U.S. sales share drop a full percentage point from 9.3 percent in April 2012 to 8.3 percent this month.