U.S. October new vehicle sales to drop 4 percent on year

U.S. auto sales this month, most likely fell near to 4 percent from the same month in last year, though automakers’ sales were buoyed by replacement of storm-damaged automobiles and record-high consumer discounts, market consultants J.D. Power and LMC Automotive stated.

LMC kept its full-year forecast for new vehicles sales in this year of 17.1 million units.

October U.S. new vehicles sales will be an estimated of 1.32 million units, a decline of nearly 3.7 percent from 1.37 million units a year previously, the consultancies said.

The forecast was based upon the first 17 selling days of October. Automakers will release U.S. sales statistics for the month on November 1.

Significant automakers’ U.S. new vehicle sales reached to a month-to-month high for the year in September as customers replaced flood-damaged cars after Cyclone Harvey hit southeast Texas in August.

The seasonally changed annualized rate for October will be 17.6 million vehicles, drop of over 1 percent from 17.8 million units in the same month in 2016, the consultancies stated.

Retail sales to customers, which do not include several fleet sales to rental agencies, organisations and government, were also set to decrease over 4 percent in October.

U.S. sales of new cars struck a record high of 17.55 million units in last year. However a saturated market, partly because of a glut of almost new used vehicles, has forced automakers to hike discounts to attract consumers to buy.