Incentives for new car sales decreased by 5 percent in April 2007 when compared to March 2007, Edmunds has reported. The average incentive was $2,342 down $132 from the year-ago quarter. According to the report, the domestic automakers led their Japanese counterparts offering more incentives.
Edmunds estimated that Chrysler had an average incentive of almost $4000 per car, while Ford offered about $3,000. General Motors offered the least amount of incentive for the domestic automakers, offering an average of about $2,800 on each new car and truck. The Japanese automakers offered fewer incentives than their U.S. based rivals — Toyota offered an average of $944 per vehicle and Honda had an average spending of $1,107 per new vehicle shown.
General Motors has been attempting to limit the amount of incentives it offers on cars and trucks to help improve the resale value of its cars. Last year the automaker announced it was moving to a value pricing strategy where MSRPs would be more in line with the average transaction costs in an attempt to reduce incentives. The plan combined with improved offerings seems to be working as GM, — who used to have the highest average incentives — now has the lowest for the U.S. automakers.
