US car market shows cautious recovery

Of course, the corona crisis in the United States has a major effect on basically everything, including car sales. However, a clear upward trend was visible in the third quarter.

The decline is still significant compared to the same quarter last year, but there is still reason for American car sellers to be cautiously positive. Reuters reports that many car brands sold a little more each month, creating a clear upward trend. More was also sold than in the disastrous second quarter.

As an example, the news agency cites General Motors, among others. That expects the total for the past quarter to be 15.9 million cars, four million more than in the previous quarter. Toyota shows a similar picture: sales fell 10 percent compared to Q3 2019, but were nicely 16 percent higher than in the second quarter of 2020.

Lots of ‘retail’

Moreover, the increase can mainly be found among ‘retail buyers’. This is good news, because the margins for individual sales are often higher than for parties that end up with rental companies under the heading of ‘fleet sales’.

The average selling price of a car sold in the US was 2.5 percent higher in September than in the same month last year, with an average of $ 38,700, nearly € 33,000. Note: for that money you have a properly equipped version of the Kia Telluride, for example, in the US, a large SUV with seven seats.

Stock halved

The American sales model is much more focused on building up stocks than the European one, because the majority of cars are also bought from stock, directly from the dealer. Normally, the third quarter is when those inventories peak. Not only because the models of the next model year will become available during this period, but also because they want to build up substantial stocks for the sales peak around the holidays at the end of the year.

According to Reuters carmakers are working hard to build up a decent stock. Yet in this area it is still clearly visible that it is not a normal year. For example, there are now ‘only’ 500,000 full-size pick-ups ready, against 900,000 in the same period last year.

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