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Car finance market up slightly in August despite drop in demand

Car finance market up slightly in August despite drop in demand

The consumer new car finance deals agreed in August were worth more than £1bn,

The UK consumer car finance market grew slightly in August despite a decline in the overall new car market, according to new figures. Data from the Finance and Leasing Association (FLA) showed a small increase in the number of cars acquired by private customers using finance deals.

Over the course of the month, private consumers agreed finance deals on almost 178,000 cars, up one percent on the same month in 2019. In total, FLA members dished out more than £2.7 billion in advances – an increase of eight percent on August last year.

The lion’s share of the growth was found in the used car market, where private customers acquired some 128,126 cars on finance last month. That’s a two-percent increase on the same period in 2019, but the value of those deals shot up by a massive 10 percent. As a result, the total value of advances came to £1.67 billion.

More on the car finance market:

The new car market saw more modest results, with the number of cars acquired on finance fell by one percent to just over 49,500. That is, perhaps, no surprise given figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) showed a drop in new car sales of almost six percent during August.

More surprising, though, is that the value of advances still rose by five percent to hit £1.04 billion, despite the doom and gloom surrounding the market. But figures also show finance deals have accounted for around 93.5 percent of new car sales in the past 12 months.

New cars in car dealership showroom

But with the impact of coronavirus, the lockdown and the current economic uncertainty shrouding the country and the car industry, the

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Consumer Prices Climbed Last Month, Driven by Used-Car Demand

Consumer Prices Climbed Last Month, Driven by Used-Car Demand

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People walk through a mall at Hudson Yards in New York City.


Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Consumer prices climbed last month, driven by continued strong demand for cars and trucks as the economy rebounds from the depths of the coronavirus recession.

The consumer-price index rose 0.2% in September on a seasonally adjusted basis, slowing from a 0.4% increase in August, the Labor Department said Tuesday. The reading was in line with the 0.2% economists polled by the Wall Street Journal had expected.

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 0.2%.

Over the past 12 months, the index rose 1.4% on a non-seasonally adjusted basis. Core prices rose 1.7% over the past year.

Prices for used vehicles were up 6.7% last month, the largest monthly increase since February 1969. The gains in this category accounted for most of the monthly overall increase.

“The jump in used car and truck prices over the past three months likely reflects the increased demand from city-dwellers who no longer are comfortable taking mass transit and others who have left the city altogether,” said Kathy Bostjancic, chief U.S. financial economist at Oxford Economics. “We suspect that these rapid increases will not continue for an extended period since the short-term increase in demand should soon become satiated.”

Another sign consumers are moving beyond the pandemic: The index for food away from home continued to rise, gaining 0.6% in September, while grocery prices fell.

U.S. stocks were heading toward a mixed open after the report.

Dow Jones Industrial Average

futures were off 0.6% at 28618,

S&P 500

futures were down 0.4% at 3518, and

Nasdaq

futures were up 0.2% at 12125.

The indexes for shelter, new vehicles, and recreation also increased in September, the Labor Department said. The indexes for airline fares and apparel

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U.S. PC Market Has Best Quarter in a Decade on Pandemic Demand

U.S. PC Market Has Best Quarter in a Decade on Pandemic Demand

(Bloomberg) — Personal computer shipments rose in the third quarter, with the U.S. market having its best performance in a decade, on demand from consumers working and studying remotely.



a close up of a person using a computer mouse and keyboard: An attendee types on a keyboard during the MarketplaceLIVE Hackathon, sponsored by Digital Realty Trust Inc., in New York, U.S., on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016. Digital Realty Trust's clients include domestic and international companies ranging from financial services, cloud and information technology services, to manufacturing, energy, gaming, life sciences and consumer products.

© Bloomberg
An attendee types on a keyboard during the MarketplaceLIVE Hackathon, sponsored by Digital Realty Trust Inc., in New York, U.S., on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016. Digital Realty Trust’s clients include domestic and international companies ranging from financial services, cloud and information technology services, to manufacturing, energy, gaming, life sciences and consumer products.

PC makers shipped 3.6% more devices in the three-month period compared with a year earlier, for a total of 71.4 million units, according to preliminary data released Monday by researcher Gartner Inc.

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Shipments of Chromebooks, cheaper web-based laptops that run Google’s Chrome operating system, soared about 90% in the third quarter from a year earlier. That lifted overall market growth to 9%, according to Gartner. The firm usually excludes these machines from its reports, but Chromebooks now represent about 11% of the overall market.

In the U.S., shipments rose 11% year over year, the first time in 10 years the region has seen double-digit growth, Gartner noted.

PC makers have solved their supply chain disruptions related to the Covid-19 pandemic and are now able to meet demand from those forced to work or study at home. Consumer demand was as strong as it has been in five years, and distance learning, especially in the U.S., drove the jump in Chromebook shipments.

“The market is no longer being measured in the number of PCs per household; rather, the dynamics have shifted to account for one PC per person,” Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa said.

Lenovo Group retained its lead with 26% of shipments, followed by HP Inc with 22% and Dell Technologies Inc with 15%. Apple Inc.

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PC Demand During Pandemic Fuels Strongest U.S. Market Growth in a Decade

PC Demand During Pandemic Fuels Strongest U.S. Market Growth in a Decade

A surge in remote work, study and home entertainment during the coronavirus pandemic boosted personal computer sales in the third quarter and drove the strongest growth in a decade in the U.S., according to industry data.

Much of the growth came from Chromebooks, with a roughly 90% surge in the third quarter driven by distance learning, especially in the U.S., according to preliminary data from

Gartner Inc.,

one of the firms that tracks PC shipments.

While Gartner doesn’t include Chromebooks in its traditional PC market results, on Monday it said that including Chromebooks, world-wide PC shipments rose around 9% year over year in the quarter, with Chromebooks representing about 11% of the combined PC/Chromebook market.

Data from research firm Canalys showed notebook and mobile workstation shipments also driving growth in the quarter, while sales of desktops and desktop workstations declined 26%.

International Data Corp. recorded growth in notebook shipments, driven by consumer sales and education, but the desktop segment saw a year-over-year decline with gaming offering some respite.

The pandemic, the data show, has put PCs back in the spotlight.

“It used to be the case that smartphones were king,” said Jitesh Ubrani, IDC’s research manager for Mobile Device Trackers.

Mr. Ubrani noted smartphone shipments declined in the second quarter and are expected to decline in the third quarter.

“At the start of the pandemic,” he said, people “pulled out their old PCs in many cases and they realized that this PC is really too old to be productive.”

Overall, PC shipments rose 3.6% to 71.4 million units in the third quarter, driven by an 11.4% growth in the U.S., the first time in a decade that the region has seen double-digit growth, according to preliminary data from Gartner.

IDC pegged the increase at 14.6% to 81.3 million units, also

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India announces economic stimulus to boost demand by $10 billion

India announces economic stimulus to boost demand by $10 billion

By Aftab Ahmed, Manoj Kumar

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India on Monday announced steps to stimulate consumer demand, including advance payment of a part of the wages of federal government employees during the festival season and more capital spending as it tries to bolster the pandemic-hit economy.

FILE PHOTO: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman arrives at her office before leaving for parliament to present the federal budget in New Delhi, India, July 5, 2019. REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis/File photo

The government will allow its employees to spend tax-exempt travel allowances on goods and services, Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s finance minister told a news briefing.

She said the government will also shore up investment by spending extra 250 billion rupees ($3.41 billion)on roads, ports and defence projects, and offering 120 billion rupees in interest-free 50-year loans to state governments for spending on infrastructure before March 31,2021.

“All these measures are likely to create an additional demand of 730 billion rupees ($9.96 billion),” Sitharaman said, adding the proposals would stimulate demand in a “fiscally prudent way.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which imposed a tough lockdown to stem the spread of the coronavirus in March, is pushing ahead with a full opening to try to boost the economy ahead of the usually high-spending festival season, which runs from October to March.

The latest package would not require any extra borrowing by the federal government, Tarun Bajaj, economic affairs secretary at the Ministry of Finance, told reporters.

India’s federal government said last month it would stick to revised borrowing target of 12 trillion rupees ($163.78 billion) in the current fiscal year ending March, against an earlier estimate of 7.8 trillion rupees.

India’s total coronavirus cases have crossed 7.12 million, second only to the United States, with deaths reaching 109,150.

The Reserve Bank of India left key policy

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