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Cars.com Analyst Forecasts Highest April SAAR Since 2006
Projected Increase of 10% Over April 2013, Decrease of 7.8% Since March

CHICAGO, April 25, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Cars.com forecasts total April sales will hit 1,414,120, up 10 percent year-over-year and down 7.8 percent from March. An adjusted SAAR of 16.29 million new-car sales is expected for April, which is an increase of 7.2 percent from this time last year, and decrease of 0.7 percent month-over-month. This would mark the highest April SAAR since 2006.

"The turbo switch finally flipped in April with new-vehicle sales expected to post a healthy 10 percent increase over 2013 after a virtually flat first quarter," said Jesse Toprak, chief analyst of automotive digital marketing company Cars.com.  "Car shoppers thawed out after one of the worst winters in history, and showroom traffic was strong once again. Demand for new cars was fueled by low interest rates, very attractive lease specials, and perhaps the best selection of models consumers have ever seen – across all brands."

Retail sales are projected to make up 81.5 percent of total automotive sales this month, up 3.2 percent from April 2013. Honda is expected to finish with the highest month of sales since December 2013, up 3.1 percent from March. Despite recall woes, GM's U.S. market share is projected to increase slightly from March to April.

Automotive sales forecasts for April 2014 for the 'Big Eight' manufacturers:

Unit Sales

Manufacturer

April 2014 Sales Forecast

YoY

MoM

Chrysler Group

178,642

13.7%

-8.4%

Ford

215,407

2.5%

-10.5%

GM

243,674

2.5%

-4.8%

Honda

137,405

4.9%

3.1%

Hyundai/Kia

112,021

1.0%

-8.0%

Nissan

101,426

15.5%

-32.0%

Toyota

196,886

11.8%

-8.6%

Volkswagen

50,428

-1.3%

-8.5%

Industry Total

1,414,120

10.0%

-7.8%

 

Market Share

Manufacturer

April 2014 Sales Forecast

Mar-14

Apr-13

Chrysler Group

12.6%

12.7%

12.2%

Ford

15.2%

15.7%

16.3%

GM

17.2%

16.7%

18.5%

Honda

9.7%

8.7%

10.2%

Hyundai/Kia

7.9%

7.9%

8.6%

Nissan

7.2%

9.7%

6.8%

Toyota

13.9%

14.0%

13.7%

Volkswagen

3.6%

3.6%

4.0%

ABOUT CARS.COM
Cars.com is an award-winning online destination for car shoppers that offers information from consumers and experts to help buyers formulate opinions on what to buy, where to buy and how much to pay for a car. Cars.com offers thousands of new and used vehicle listings, consumer reviews, side-by-side comparison tools, photo galleries, videos, unbiased editorial content and many other tools to take the drama out of car shopping. Cars.com puts millions of car buyers in control of their shopping process with the information they need to make confident buying decisions. Launched in June 1998, Cars.com is a division of Classified Ventures LLC.

SOURCE Cars.com

For further information: Thomas Muellner, tmuellner@cars.com, 312.601.5635