J.D. Power & Associates raised its forecast for U.S. car and light-truck sales this year to 16.4 million from 16 million due to incentives such as zero percent interest loans bolstering first-quarter results. Sales this month are expected to fall less than 1 percent from "a

very strong March 2001," the Agoura Hills, Calif.-based marketing research company said after its survey for the first two weeks.

The company expects sales this month at an annualized rate of 16.5 million to 17 million vehicles.

"We've been pretty optimistic all along," said company spokesman John Tews, according to a Bloomberg News story by Alison Fitzgerald. "We expected the first quarter to be pretty slow but it sounds like these incentives are here to stay."

Power and Associates collects data from about 5,000 U.S. new-car dealerships.

J.D. Power and Associates can be accessed on the Web at www.jdpa.com.

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