After a three month hiatus, generous incentives help boost interest for the Chevy Silverado and other pickups

Nashville, TN — Dataium, the largest aggregator of online in-market automotive shopper behavior, today released its monthly Automotive Shopper Intensity (ASI™) report. The ASI index, a leading predictive indicator of automotive retail sales, rose slightly, by 0.14% in January, indicating a continuation of the early momentum of the New Year. Based on this, Dataium forecasts the US Retail SAAR in February to be 12.5 million retail units.

While the overall shopping intensity for mid-size sedans remains relatively high, the February ASI report indicates a surge in auto shopper interest for pickup trucks. The combination of a resurgence in the housing sector, and generous manufacturer incentives, has led the truck segment to exhibit a month over month gain in shopping intensity of almost 35%.

After a three month hiatus, the top-selling domestic pickup from GM, the Chevrolet Silverado, returned to the top of the ASI ranking list in February. In addition to the Silverado, four other pickups, the Ford F-150, Toyota Tacoma, Ram 1500 and GMC Sierra 1500, ranked in the top ten for new vehicle ASI this month.

Eric Brown, CEO of Dataium stated, “In the evaluation for our ASI awards, one of the interesting aspects of consumer behavior was the fact that strong incentives could trump initial shopping desire, reflective of all the conquest programs we see today in the marketplace, and ASI this month, reinforces that observation.”

Dataium provides data and research on auto shopper/buyer behavior nationally, and by specific makes, models, vehicle segments, and markets. The index has proven to be very accurate in predicting future trends, consumer intent and desire, along with new model entry success or failure. The national ASI report is available for download at www.dataium.com/library. Dataium reports and dashboards are available on a subscription basis or may be customized to access real-time updates to measure in-market behavior, sales forecasting, advertising effectiveness, digital marketing performance, and website design proficiency.

To request complete access to Dataium’s ASI predictive modeling tool on future consumer demand by make, model, trim level, segment, region, and market, contact Dataium at www.dataium.com/contact.