Vehicle registrations climb 35% in August

— New vehicle registrations in Arkansas were up 35 percent in August compared with August last year, a Kentucky automotive research firm said Monday.

There were 9,738 new vehicles titled in the state last month, up from 7,191 in August 2011, said Cross-Sell of Lexington, Ky., which provides market analysis for the automotive industry.

The registrations were the second highest monthly total since Cross-Sell began providing the information four years ago. Only the 10,173new vehicles registered in May exceeded August’s total.

The 35 percent growth in August was more representative of the 20 percent to 25 percent growth in most months this year than the 6 percent decline recorded in July, said Michael Pakko, chief economist at the Institute for Economic Advancement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

“I think [July] appears to be more of an outlier than [recent months],” Pakko said.

Automobile sales have been one area of the economy that has been strong, Pakko said.

“During the recession, not only were people cutting back on their spending, and it was well known that the auto industry was in trouble,” Pakko said. “That might have affected people’s attitudes about taking the plunge and buying a new car. We’ve seen that bounce back pretty strongly, although not at the pace that it was before the recession.”

Dennis Jungmeyer, president of the Arkansas Automobile Dealers Association, didn’t have an explanation for the 35 percent jump in registrations after the decline of 6 percent in July.

The dealers in the state are pleased with business, Jungmeyer said.

“Their sales have been very stable,” Jungmeyer said.

For the first eight months of the year, Arkansas registrations are up almost 20 percent with about 63,640 titles this year, almost 10,400 above the totals for the first eight months of 2011.

Totals for vehicle titles can be skewed from month to-month because Arkansans have 30 days to register their cars or trucks after purchasing them. So August titles represent, for the most part, actual sales in July. State agencies do not provide the number of auto sales in Arkansas each month.

In August, Chevrolet grabbed 18.1 percent of the market with 1,758 registrations, compared with a 13.8 percent market share for Ford and a 13.6 percent share for Toyota.

Pickups dominated the models registered last month, led by Chevrolet and followed by Ford, GMC and Dodge Ram. There were 2,124 full sized pickups registered last month, almost 22 percent of the market.

There were 13,938 used vehicles registered after sales by dealers in August, up 25 percent from August last year.

“Dealers’ used-car departments remain extremely strong,” Jungmeyer said.

For the first eight months of the year, almost 273,800 vehicles have been registered through dealers in the state, up 4 percent compared with the same period last year.

There were another 23,727 used vehicles were sold last month through private party transactions, up 17 percent from August 2011.

Nationally, new vehicle sales were up 20 percent in August compared with August 2011, according to Automotive News. The 1.3 million sales were the best August since August 2007, Automotive News said.

Business, Pages 21 on 09/25/2012

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