New vehicle registrations in Arkansas dropped 18.3 percent in the first quarter this year, according to Cross-Sell of Lexington, Ky.
There were 28,265 new vehicles registered in Arkansas from January to March this year, down from 34,584 through the first three months of 2014, Cross-Sell said. The compiler of automobile data collects information from Arkansas' Office of Motor Vehicle.
The decline comes after five years of increasing registrations since 2009, when the Kentucky firm began providing data on registrations in Arkansas.
March sales rose less than 1 percent nationally compared with March last year. Snow was still a problem in March in many areas of the country.
The first two months nationally were better than March. Auto sales increased 14 percent in January nationally and 5 percent in February.
In recent years, there has been rapid growth in auto sales both nationally and in Arkansas during the otherwise slow economic recovery, said Michael Pakko, chief economist at the Institute for Economic Advancement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
"Now we've gotten back to where automobile sales are on a more sustainable, even keel," Pakko said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "To see [registrations] down from last year means we've reached that plateau where now we're no longer seeing that rapid pace of expansion that we did two or three years ago."
Auto registrations through March actually show a significant increase compared with the first quarter of 2013, Pakko said.
The first quarter this year is up 19.6 percent from the first three months of 2013, when 23,633 new vehicles were registered, Pakko said.
The first quarter this year also is up about twice what it was in the first quarter of 2009, the first year totals were provided, Pakko noted.
"That's just another comparison regarding the recovery from the recession [which ended in June 2009]," Pakko said.
Dennis Jungmeyer, president of the Arkansas Automobile Dealers Association, was surprised at the size of the drop-off in registrations for the first three months this year.
For some dealers, sales have been slow, Jungmeyer said.
"But by and large, the dealers are doing well," he said.
Chevrolet was the No. 1 brand of new automobiles registered through March with 4,468 registrations, followed by Ford with 4,151. Ford's F-series pickups were the top model registered in the first quarter with 2,076 registered, followed by Chevrolet's full-sized pickups with 1,704 registrations.
There were 111,847 used vehicles registered in Arkansas in the first three months, down about 30 percent from 159,676 used vehicles registered in the first quarter last year.
Totals for Arkansas vehicle titles aren't a precise comparison to vehicle sales from month to month because Arkansans are allowed 30 days to register cars or trucks after a purchase. So, for example, March titles primarily represent sales in February.
Business on 04/30/2015