Edmunds.com Reports September Car Sales Soft Following Strong Labor Day Weekend
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — September 16, 2010 — Edmunds.com, the premier online resource for automotive information, reports today that new car buyers flocked to dealerships for Labor Day weekend sales but have largely stayed away since then.
"New car sales for the three-day weekend jumped a remarkable 22 percent compared to average weekend sales in August, rather than the typical 12 percent rise," noted Edmunds.com Senior Analyst Ray Zhou, PhD. "But as soon as the holiday weekend was over, car-shopping activity fell about 40 percent."
The automotive industry is currently tracking at an 11.3 million Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate for September, assuming slightly lower fleet sale volume than last month, say Edmunds.com analysts.
So far this month, BMW, Chrysler, Ford and Volkswagen retail sales are down between five and ten percent compared to the first two weeks of August, while Nissan is up about five percent and Toyota is up about nine percent. The rest of the automakers are relatively stable.
Edmunds.com CEO Jeremy Anwyl blogged at http://justtoclarify.typepad.com/my-blog/2010/09/september-sales.html, "Labor Day occurred unusually late this year. This took some sales that would normally have occurred in late August in the run up to the Labor Day weekend and pushed them fully into September."
"There are no more holiday weekends in September and few throughout the rest of the year, so automakers may want to think about some creative ways to stimulate sales. Momentum seems to be lacking whenever the calendar does not reflect a traditional sales period," commented Edmunds.com Senior Analyst Jessica Caldwell.
"We recognize that tracking TMV® prices minimizes the extent to which deflation is occurring in the auto industry because it doesn't take into account that today's cars have a myriad of features that did not exist in earlier years. If you look at what you get today, even on an entry level vehicle, it's a staggering amount of value. Vehicles, like computers, just keep getting more advanced for an increasingly better price," said Jeremy Anwyl, CEO of Edmunds.com, who explores this further on his blog at http://justtoclarify.typepad.com.
About Edmunds (http://www.edmunds.com/about/)
Edmunds.com publishes four Web sites that empower, engage and educate automotive consumers, enthusiasts and insiders. Edmunds.com, the premier online resource for automotive information, launched in 1995 as the first automotive information Web site. Its mobile site, accessible from any smartphone at www.edmunds.com, makes car pricing and other research tools available for car shoppers at dealerships and otherwise on the go. InsideLine.com is the most-read automotive enthusiast Web site. Its mobile site, accessible from any smartphone at www.insideline.com, features the wireless Web's highest quality car photos and videos. CarSpace is the most established automotive social networking Web site. AutoObserver.com provides insightful automotive industry commentary and analysis. Edmunds is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, and maintains a satellite office in suburban Detroit. Follow Edmunds.com on Twitter@edmunds and fan Edmunds.com on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/edmunds.
