My Blog, Auto Sales Training for the Automotive World,  Certified World Wide.

Hello, my name is Roger Newbold, just to tell you a little about myself the automobile world is my passion. After over 35 years in the business the first 6 years in auto sales and almost 15 years in management. I founded Auto Sales Training Group in 1995. ASTG travel Nationwide doing weekly training seminars. We have recruited and trained a lot of people some are now super salespeople, some are in management some own dealerships and some never made it a week. In the automobile World to be successful you have to like people, cars and a burning desire to succeed. Thanks for checking out my website, which by the way, is over 10 years old, we just gave it a face lift.

The Professional Approch

Forecast: Auto Sales Headed Toward 14 Million This Year.

While 2012 has barely gotten underway, the auto industry has reason to be optimistic because car sales are on the upswing.

Light vehicle sales in the U.S. in January are expected to total 874,481, up 6.7% from the year-earlier period, according to industry research and forecasting company TrueCar.com. The January forecast translates to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate, or SAAR, of 13.6 million new car sales, up from the 12.7 million rate in January.

Retail auto sales are up 7.3% compared with last year but down 30% from last month. TrueCar said it expects fleet and rental sales are expected to make up 19% of total industry sales this month.

The average incentive spending per vehicle is expected to be about $2,592 this month, which is up slightly from a year ago but down 4% from December.

Used-car sales are expected to increase 8% to about 2.2 million compared with a year ago and down 31% from December 2011. The ratio of new to used is estimated to be 1:2 for January 2012

“The underlying consumer demand for new vehicles continues to improve at a steady pace. For the first time in several years, we are starting the year off with a warm and fuzzy feeling of the good-old-days where the industry and the consumers are once again focused on the excitement of the new cars –and not which car company is going to survive, ” said Jesse Toprak, an analyst with TrueCar