State new-vehicle titles jump 50%

LITTLE ROCK — New-vehicle registrations in Arkansas last month continued an upward monthly trend that’s been interrupted only once since November, an auto research firm says.

There were 10,173 new vehicles registered in Arkansas in May, up more than 50 percent from about 6,700 in May last year, according to Cross-Sell of Lexington, Ky., which provides market analysis for the automotive industry.

Last month’s number is the highest total of new-vehicle registrations in Arkansas since May 2008. The highest more recent total had been about 9,100 in October 2011.

Totals for vehicle title registrations can be skewed from month to month because Arkansans have 30 days to register their cars or trucks after purchasing them, said Michael Pakko, chief economist at the Institute for Economic Advancement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. State agencies do not provide the number of auto sales in Arkansas each month.

But even combining registrations for April and May, titles were up 12 percent over the same two-month period last year. April registrations were down slightly from March and were the only exception to the upward trend over the past eight months, possibly because of the skewing Pakko mentioned.

“Our business has been plenty good,” Steve Landers, owner of Landers Toyota Scion and Steve Landers Chrysler Dodge Jeep, both in Little Rock, said in an interview Friday. Landers also owns McLarty-Landers dealerships across the South with Thomas F. “Mack” McLarty and Robert Johnson.

“What is causing [high auto sales] is for the last four or five years, people have not been buying because of the economy,” Landers said. “They were just finally wearing their cars out. [The sales increases are] because of pent-up demand.”

Title registrations for used vehicles sold through dealerships totaled more than 25,300 in May, up 42 percent from 10,700 in May last year.

The continued strength in auto sales indicates that households have the income to buy big-ticket items, Pakko said.

Tom Roy, chief financial officer for Frank Fletcher Auto Group, which has four dealerships in Arkansas and eight in Missouri, said Fletcher sales were up about 12 percent in May.

Overall, sales at the Fletcher dealerships in Arkansas and Missouri are up more than 50 percent for the first five months of the year, Roy said. The reason for the huge jump, however, is because Fletcher had six dealerships in Joplin, Mo., that were damaged severely by a tornado last year.

For two weeks, the Joplin dealerships didn’t sell a vehicle, Roy said. Some are just now returning to their permanent locations.

Chevrolet again was the No. 1 make registered in Arkansas, accounting for 17.2 percent of the market in May. But Toyota edged out Ford for second, each getting 14.2 percent of the market.

Chevrolet pickups were the top model in May, with Ford pickups second. As happens most months, full-sized pickups were the No. 1 segment in the state with 21 percent of the market.

Nationally, vehicle sales were up 26 percent last month compared with May last year, according to industry trade journal Automotive News. Sales nationally, however, are still several million units per year below the levels reached prior to the financial meltdown of 2008.

Auto research firm Edmunds. com had predicted last month that sales of Toyota, Honda and Chrysler could jump more than 50 percent in May. The Japanese brands last year were suffering from the aftermath of a tsunami and earthquake in Japan, plus flooding that affected plants in Thailand. Chrysler, meanwhile, is recovering from bankruptcy and has a number of new models on the market.

Jessica Caldwell, senior analyst at Edmunds.com, said in the report that there was a pent-up demand for cars.

“And with consumers gaining more and more access to credit, there’s every reason to believe that sales can continue at this rate through the rest of the year,” Caldwell said in the report.

Incentives for new vehicles are as high as $5,000 off for a Chevrolet Avalanche pickup, $3,500 for a Chevrolet Impala sedan and $3,000 for a Lincoln Navigator sport utility vehicle, according to Automotive News. Another common incentive is low interest rates. For example, Honda offers rates as low as 0.9 percent on the Civic and Accord, the publication said.