According to foreign media reports, on January 26, J.D. Power and other consulting companies released a report showing that due to the decline in auto production caused by Omilon, as well as supply chain restrictions and global inflation caused by soaring auto prices, in January, U.S. auto retail sales may fall by 8.3% year-on-year to 828,900 units.
Thomas King, president of J.D. Power's data and analytics division, said, "The number of new cars delivered to dealers in January was not enough to meet strong consumer demand, resulting in a significant slowdown in sales. ”
The COVID-19 pandemic has created supply chain bottlenecks that have pushed up all costs, from labor to raw materials. The average retail transaction price of a new car in the U.S. is expected to reach $44,905 in January, compared to a previous record high of $45,283 in December 2021.
While demand remained strong, business activity in the United States grew at its slowest pace in January in 18 months as a surge in COVID-19 infections in the winter, which led to an increase in factory worker shortages.
Total U.S. new vehicle sales (retail and non-retail) are expected to reach 932,099 units in January, down 15.6% year-on-year. In the month, the seasonally adjusted annualized sales rate of new vehicles in the United States was expected to be 14.1 million units, down 2.6 million units from the same period last year.
Cox Automotive said new car sales in the U.S. are expected to reach 1.01 million units in January, down 8.9 percent from the same period last year. The company also expects seasonally adjusted annualized sales of new cars in the U.S. to approach 15.3 million units that month, up from 12.4 million units last December, the slowest rate since May 2020.
Despite the additional risks, J.D. Consulting firms such as Power expect global light vehicle sales to grow 6 percent to 86.2 million units in 2022.