February U.S. Light-Vehicle Days’ Supply Dips

A sharp uptick in February sales trimmed month-end days’ supply to a normal 65 from January's excessive 76, even as the total number of light vehicles on dealer lots increased 2.0% to 3,236,852 units.

February’s stock was a welcome 20.5% ahead of prior-year’s weak 2,685,738 units and slightly less than the 3,317,400 average of the previous 28 years.

Last month’s stepped-up selling pace, along with some judicious production cuts, was particularly good news for the Detroit Three, helping trim January’s outsized 90 days’ supply to a still-high, but more manageable, 74 days’ on Feb. 28.

Unit stock for Chrysler, Ford and General Motors combined grew by less than 1%, with an accompanying across-the-board decline in days’ supply for all brands, the most noticeable being a major fall in Fiat inventory to 126 from 179 the prior month.

The news was not as good for Asian and European makes that began March with a subpar 58 and 57 days’, respectively,  down from an ideal 65 for each the month before.

Dealers for six of 12 Asian brands had less than a 60 days’ supply of LVs on Feb. 28 compared with four brands in January and eight in like-2012, when several Japanese auto makers still struggled to rebuild inventory after 2011’s natural disaster-related production losses.

Among leading Asian brands, strong February sales trimmed Hyundai and Kia to 52 days’ supply each, down from January’s 58, despite a 9.7% increase in unit stock.

The lowest supplies among the Japanese makes were recorded by Subaru and the moribund Suzuki, the latter all but out of business in the U.S., at 38 days.’

Five of the seven European auto makers had less than 50 days’ supply of new cars on hand at the close of February, although inventories of Volkswagen and Volvo models, at 87 and 89, respectively, remained well above the ideal level.

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