Steel Markets
April 21, 2015
US Vehicle Sales and NAFTA Vehicle Production Analysis for March 2015
Written by Peter Wright
March vehicle sales brought welcome new by bouncing back vigorously to 17.15 million units on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, up from 16.23 million units in February. The March 2015 sales pace was 4 percent higher than the March 2014 pace. Cars had the greatest growth from 7.2 million units in February to 7.7 in March. Light trucks grew from 9.0 in February to 9.4 in March. Sales of domestic product grew from 12.9 to 13.4, imports from 3.4 to 3.7.
Total light vehicle (LV) production in NAFTA in March was at an annual rate of 18,859,176 units, up by 2.7 million from February or 17.0 percent. On average since 2004, March’s production has been 10.0 percent higher than February so this was a very good result (Figure 1). Note: these production numbers are not seasonally adjusted, the sales data reported above are seasonally adjusted. History predicts that production will decrease in April by 10.4 percent.
