Sales of new cars go up almost 5% in the first half of August

SAO PAULO-new car sales this month are slightly above July volumes, but, as expected, without repeating the performance of August last year, which was the best month in the history of the automobile industry.
During the first half, got their plates were 152.7 million automobiles and light utilities in the country, which corresponds to a high of 4.7% over the same period from July's performance, when sales, however, were hindered by a holiday in Sao Paulo, the country's largest market.
In comparison with the volume of a year earlier, sales of this month show 10% drop, according to preliminary data provided by sources with access to daily plates issued.
The Fenabrave, the entity that represents the car dealerships, reported that it will no longer disclose the results every two weeks.
Performance tips for 1.4 percent sales growth a year to date, show increased close to 9% in May. Until yesterday, sales for the year amounted to 2.18 million vehicles, without including in the trucks and buses.
Rodrigo Nishida, LCA's analyst, says that the market tends to reverse the growth curve and close August with cumulative volume in 2013. This time, the less favourable with a calendar working day of sale unless both the July as compared with the same period last year, should lead to a fall in the August results.
In the accounts of Nishida, car sales will close the month with around 317 thousand units, which would be a drop of 2% in relation to last month's volume. The projection also indicates a drop of 22% in comparison with August of 2012, when more than 405 thousand cars were licensed in the race of consumers to take advantage of the discounts in the tax on industrialized products (IPI), which could be removed in the following month — what did not happen.
The analyst says that the last industry numbers endanger even conservative projections pointing to an increase of 1% of sales this year. According to him, to get to that number, the market would have to go back to a daily pace of sales to exceed 15 thousand cars, what just happened, this year, in June. "Now I'm with a doubt over this prediction," said Nishida, which provides for this month, a daily average of plates issued at 14.4 thousand units, taking into account a market acceleration in the second half.
The projections of Anfavea, an organization that represents automakers, point to a growth in the range of 3.5% to 4.5% of sales in 2013, including, in this case, the volumes of trucks and buses.