by Calculated Risk on 12/26/2013 02:14:00 PM

Note: The automakers will report December vehicle sales on January 3rd.

Here are two forecasts:

From Edmunds.com: Strong December Car Deals Give Car Shoppers More Reason to Celebrate this Holiday Season, Says Edmunds.com

Edmunds.com forecasts shoppers will snatch up 1,425,818 new cars and trucks in the U.S. in December for an estimated Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) of 16.1 million. This will be ... about a five percent increase from December 2012. Edmunds projects that 2013 will see 15.66 million total new car sales, which would be a strong eight percent increase over 2012.

From Kelley Blue Book: New-Car Sales To Improve Nearly 5 Percent From Last Year; Kelley Blue Book Projects 16.3 Million New Car Sales In 2014

New-vehicle sales are expected to improve 4.7 percent year-over-year in December to a total of 1.42 million units, and an estimated 16 million seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR), according to Kelley Blue Book ...

Looking forward to 2014, sales will continue to improve and Kelley Blue Book anticipates the industry to surpass 16 million SAAR for the first year since 2007. Growth will slow from recent years; however, the initial estimate from Kelley Blue Book for 2014 is 16.3 million units, up 4.3 percent from 2013.

It appears sales in December will be solid.

Most forecasts were for auto sales growth to slow in 2013 to around 4% growth or 15.0 million units.  However it now appears sales growth was closer to 8% - and expectations are for another 4% growth in 2014. 

Light Vehicle Sales
	Sales (millions)	Annual Change
2000	17.4	2.7%
2001	17.1	-1.3%
2002	16.8	-1.8%
2003	16.6	-1.1%
2004	16.9	1.4%
2005	16.9	0.5%
2006	16.5	-2.6%
2007	16.1	-2.5%
2008	13.2	-18.0%
2009	10.4	-21.2%
2010	11.6	11.1%
2011	12.7	10.2%
2012	14.4	13.4%
20131	15.7	8.4%
1Edmunds Forecast (based on actual through November)