TrueCar, the negotiation-free car buying and selling mobile marketplace, reports that the volume of vehicles sold through its branded TrueCar channel surged 63 percent year-over-year in May, far outstripping the industry’s growth.
U.S. sales of new light vehicles grew 1.6 percent in May to 1.64 million units, an all-time record for the month. The Seasonally Adjusted Annualized Rate (SAAR) came in at a robust 17.8 million-unit pace, the strongest since July 2005.
The TrueCar channel’s growth rate, which was 39 times that of the industry’s, even surpassed that of the only national retail chain that discloses monthly sales figures, which notched a 5 percent volume increase in May from a year earlier.
“We’ve entered a very encouraging period of growth and expansion for the TrueCar-branded channel amid the best U.S. market in more than a decade,” said Scott Painter, TrueCar’s chief executive officer and founder. “We know that introducing transparency and efficiency to all aspects of the car-buying process leads to a better experience. It’s gratifying that nearly 11,000 forward-thinking dealers agree and work with us to serve modern consumers in a new way.”
Unique visitors to the TrueCar branded site, excluding those it operates for partners such as USAA, AAA, Consumer Reports and American Express, surpassed 4.4 million in May. That was the most ever, driven by continued improvements in TrueCar marketing effectiveness and the availability of exclusive TrueCash incentives for TrueCar consumers.
Going into the summer car-buying season, industrywide sales remain on pace to hit the highest volume since 2001, currently projected by TrueCar to reach 17.1 million new cars and trucks, up from 16.5 million in 2014.
