US April auto sales cut in half as coronavirus dampens purchasing: consultants

Pittsburgh — US total new vehicle sales in April slid by about 50% year over year as the coronavirus pandemic limited consumer and corporate purchasing activity during a full month of shelter-in-place measures across the country, according to industry consultants.

Analysts with Cox Automotive said Wednesday April new vehicle sales dove 47% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 8.6 million units from 16.5 million units in April 2019, despite the month having one more selling day compared to last year. Sales in the month were also down from an SAAR of 11.4 million units in March.

The decline in sales was even more pronounced among vehicle fleet purchases, which fell 70.1% year over year in April to 72,084 units, Cox analysts said in a report.

"The key impact of COVID-19 is that business uncertainty and expectations of recession have led to rental car companies and small businesses slowing (or stopping in some cases) vehicle purchases," the analysts said. "The hit taken due to the COVID-19 pandemic in April was far more severe in the fleet business than in retail."

Cox Senior Economist Charlie Chesbrough said the weak results were still not as bad as expected.

"Sales, which had been tracking lower through most of the month, actually improved slightly over the last two weeks of April," Chesbrough said in a commentary Monday. "In some states, the opening of dealerships to sell vehicles, either in person or through digital transactions, clearly helped improve the sales pace through the month."

Chesbrough said he expected sales to improve in May.

Edmunds provided similar perspective regarding declining new vehicle sales in April. In a recent report, analysts with the agency said they forecast a significant drop in April new vehicle sales to 633,260 units (SAAR 7.7 million), down 52.5% year over year and down 36.6% from the previous month.

"April auto sales took the biggest hit we've seen in decades," Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds' executive director of insights, said in a recent report. "These bleak figures aren't just because consumers are holding back on their purchases — fleet sales are seeing an even more dramatic drop as daily rental business has dried up."

Edmunds said the April sales likely represented the lowest monthly activity since 1990 but expected May purchasing to potentially improve on the easing of shelter-in-place orders.

"April is likely the bottom for auto sales, so hopefully there's only room for improvement from here," Caldwell said. "But with employment and consumer confidence at new lows, the question remains: Will people be in the position to purchase new cars?"

General Motors led all North American automakers in expected April sales with 123,408 units, down 46.7% year over year according to Edmunds data.