Edmunds projects slight uptick in July auto sales

Auto-sales trade publisher Edmunds estimated that 1,380,771 new vehicles were sold in the U.S. during the month of July for a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 16.5 million. This reflects a 9.3-percent decline in sales from June 2019, but a 0.5-percent growth from July 2018.

Though July is anticipated to be the first month this year to exhibit an improvement in monthly auto sales compared to 2018, the car-shopping experts say this is not necessarily sign of a turnaround.

"A lot of people are enjoying vacations and family time in July, so it's generally not a strong month for auto sales," Edmunds' Senior Manager of Insights Jeremy Acevedo said in a press release. "The fact that automakers could eke out a slight gain is encouraging but not necessarily indicative of a positive trend. The extra selling day makes things look a little better than they really are, and we still believe sales will continue to trend downward through the back half of the year."

SALES VOLUME FORECAST, BY MANUFACTURER
Sales
Volume
July 2019
Forecast
July 2018
June
2019
Change from July
2018
Change from June
2019
GM*
232,320
220,000
255,785
5.6%
-9.2%
Toyota
202,495
208,770
201,887
-3.0%
0.3%
Ford*
189,858
192,743
217,000
-1.5%
-12.5%
Fiat Chrysler
167,230
170,970
206,083
-2.2%
-18.9%
Honda
137,516
138,602
135,901
-0.8%
1.2%
Hyundai/Kia
115,243
104,864
122,890
9.9%
-6.2%
Nissan
105,214
108,792
123,504
-3.3%
-14.8%
VW/Audi
48,018
49,741
51,134
-3.5%
-6.1%
Tesla
16,792
-
-
-
-
Industry
1,380,771
1,374,007
1,522,817
0.5%
-9.3%
*GM sales totals for July 2018 are estimated, GM & Ford sales totals for June 2019 are estimated
**NOTE: July 2019 had 25 selling days, July 2018 had 24 and June 2019 had 26.


Edmunds also forecasts the retail SAAR will come in at 14.2 million vehicles in July 2019.

MARKET SHARE FORECAST, BY MANUFACTURER
Market
Share
July 2019
Forecast
July 2018
June
2019
Change from July
2018
Change from June
2019
GM*
16.8%
16.0%
16.8%
0.8%
0.0%
Toyota
14.7%
15.2%
13.3%
-0.5%
1.4%
Ford*
13.8%
14.0%
14.2%
-0.3%
-0.5%
Fiat Chrysler
12.1%
12.4%
13.5%
-0.3%
-1.4%
Honda
10.0%
10.1%
8.9%
-0.1%
1.0%
Hyundai/Kia
8.3%
7.6%
8.1%
0.7%
0.3%
Nissan
7.6%
7.9%
8.1%
-0.3%
-0.5%
VW/Audi
3.5%
3.6%
3.4%
-0.1%
0.1%
Tesla
1.2%
-
-
-
-