May 2021 Auto Market Update
- The week-over-week increases continued for a sixteenth consecutive week.
- It is now clear that 2021 will also not have typical seasonality patterns as the market is going through a rapid increase in wholesale values.
- The spring market arrived about 7 weeks earlier and with much stronger price increases compared to a typical pre-COVID year.
- The global microchip shortage continues to wreak havoc on production levels. Nissan announced they are expecting to see a reduction of 500,000 units in 2021.
- The current used retail listing volume is about 14% below the start of the year, but the inventory levels stabilized in the last 4 weeks.
- Car segment gains ticked up slightly this past week (+1.30%) compared to the week prior (+1.25%).
- Seven of the nine-car segments had gains exceeding +1.00%.
- Compact Cars are no longer experiencing weekly gains exceeding 2%, but the nine-week average increase is +2.04%.
- For the first time since mid-March, the Sub-Compact Car segment had increases below 1%.
- Near-Luxury Car increased the rate of gains this past week (+1.22%), compared to the prior week (+1.04%).
- Sporty Cars continue to see large gains (+1.24%), compared to +0.36% during this same week in 2019.
