Bettering stock and better retail demand helped U.S. gross sales at Hyundai and Kia advance for the seventh straight month in February.
Deliveries final month rose 9 p.c to 57,044, a February report, Hyundai mentioned, with retail gross sales rising 1 p.c to 52,932 and fleet accounting for seven p.c of total quantity.
Hyundai mentioned Wednesday it ended February with 54,156 autos in U.S. stock, up 20 p.c from 45,158 on the shut of January and 190 p.c from 18,621 a yr earlier.
Quantity rose 24 p.c to a February report of 60,859 at Kia, with main beneficial properties for the Forte, Sportage, Sorento, Telluride and Carnival.
Eric Watson, vice chairman of gross sales operations at Kia America, mentioned rising manufacturing and stock ranges are permitting the automaker to “totally capitalize” on demand.
Genesis mentioned it additionally set a February report with U.S. gross sales rising 21 p.c to 4,208 on sharply larger crossover deliveries and the brand new GV60 electrical crossover.
U.S. light-vehicle gross sales are projected to rise 3.9 p.c to 7.2 p.c in February, based mostly on forecasts from J.D. Energy-LMC Automotive, Cox Automotive, TrueCar and S&P World Mobility, with sharply larger fleet deliveries offsetting flat retail quantity.
Fleet shipments throughout the business are anticipated to return in at 209,200 in February, up 54 p.c from February 2022, J.D. Energy estimates, and symbolize 19 p.c of complete light-vehicle quantity, up from simply 13 p.c a yr earlier. A number of automakers face a backlog of business, authorities and rental fleet orders because of the microchip scarcity that prompted many to prioritize extra worthwhile retail quantity.
Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co., Subaru and Mazda will report February outcomes later Wednesday, adopted by gross sales from Ford Motor Co. and Volvo on Thursday. The remainder of the business studies U.S. gross sales on a quarterly foundation.
Whereas pent-up demand stays robust within the wake of persistent stock shortages, larger rates of interest, rising new-vehicle costs and falling used-vehicle costs are weighing on retail quantity, analysts say.
“We’ve got diverging markets in the present day,” mentioned Charlie Chesbrough, senior economist at Cox Automotive. “New stock is slowly stabilizing whereas used provide is falling. With many affordability-seeking automobile consumers leaving the brand new marketplace for the used, sellers could discover they’ve too little used stock, and value declines could reverse. And [automakers] could discover they’ve an excessive amount of new-vehicle stock and be pressured to be extra aggressive with incentives to spice up gross sales.”