Though automotive inventory in general has exploded over the past few months – a return to normal following years of shortages – some brands have experienced a larger increase than others. That includes Lincoln, which has remained far above the industry average in terms of days’ supply of new vehicle inventory for quite a while now. In fact, new Lincoln inventory levels were once again more than double the industry average in August, which has been true of several other months as well, and things didn’t improve in September 2024, either.
Rather, according to new data from Cox Automotive, new Lincoln inventory levels closed out September at a 147 days’ supply, which is higher than any other automotive brand except for Jaguar, which posted a 155 days’ supply – much higher than the average of 81 days. The Ford brand didn’t fare much better with a 105 days’ supply, though that was at least a bit further down the list.
These figures are even more alarming when we consider that the industry average of an 81 days’ supply is nearly identical to October 2019’s 80 days’ supply, signaling that overall, the automotive industry is getting much closer to normal, in general, though it’s also two days higher than August 2024. Regardless, sales declined by 5.7 percent as well, while the total U.S. supply of available unsold new vehicles opened October at 2.76 million units – 25 percent higher than last year, but also down 20 percent from 2019 levels.
As for incentive spending, it rose from 4.8 percent in September 2023 and 7.2 percent in August 2024 to 7.3 percent of the average transaction price ($3,522) last month -= though it still trails far behind the 10.3 percent mark set in September 2019. Despite all of this, average transaction pricing hasn’t moved downward much over the course of 2024, and in fact, was up two percent versus August and 0.9 percent compared to a year ago, coming in at $47,823.
No Comments yet