20 Million Bound

Yearly light-vehicle sales in the U.S. will hit 20 million units for the first time ever in roughly 10 years, predicts a General Motors Corp. executive.

“I think we'll get close to it early to mid next decade. I believe we'll be close to 19 million units by the end of this decade,” Paul Ballew, executive director-market and industry analysis, says at GM's Detroit headquarters during a year-end media briefing.

To casual observers, the U.S. would appear to be a mature market. The huge Baby Boomer population is leaving behind its peak earning years for retirement. Sales have fluttered around 17 million units annually since 1999. Ballew is predicting deliveries will total 16.9 million in 2003. Vehicle ownership already is at high levels — the average U.S. household has two vehicles.

But U.S. vehicle sales will continue to grow, Ballew predicts. The next population wave only recently began driving — 60 million Americans known as Generation Y or Echo Boomers who were born between 1979 and 1994. Also contributing are vehicle affordability, increasingly widespread affluence and population growth from immigration.

Ballew says growth won't be as dramatic as in the 1950s and 1960s.

The U.S., Ballew points out, has one of the most positive long-term outlooks regarding vehicle sales among developed markets.

“We're a growing population. We're a growing economy,” he says.

“We shouldn't feel complacent about the U.S., because there are issues on the public policy radar. But we have to feel better about the fundamentals of the U.S. economy than where we were two decades ago.”

Worldwide, global sales will top 60 million units for the first time in history in 2004, and by the end of the decade deliveries will hit 75 million units, Ballew says.