PIN Reports Compact Vehicles to continuously gain share in the US market

According to real-time retail transaction data from the Power Information Network (PIN) a division of J.D. Power and Associates, compact vehicles are still gaining a greater share of the US new vehicle market as more models of compact cars are made available for consumers. The compact share of the total new vehicle market rose from 27.9% in 2005 to 31.2% in 2006. During that time, the share of the midsize vehicles dropped from 42.8% to 40.4% while the share of the large vehicles plummets from 29.4% to 28.6%.Last December 2006, five out of the seven segments with the fastest turn rates were compact vehicle segments, with the compact premium CUV (28 days) ranking 1st and the compact basic car (35 days) segments ranking second.styling and functionality are additional factors that contribute to the compact vehicle share growth. Libby also stressed that the prices of gas in 2006 may have caused some consumers to shy away from purchasing larger cars and trucks.
. Likewise, percentage of owners of both midsize and large non-luxury vehicles trading to a compact vehicle increased as well from 20.8% to 25.8%. There is also an increase from 7% to 9.1% among large non-luxury vehicle drivers.

And for this year, 2007, seven compact models have made their debut at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The seven compact models that were introduced focused on new smaller crossovers and more conventional small cars---and that's according to Jeff Schuster, Executive Director of J.D. Power and Associates Automotive Forecasting.