There was an understandable, if troubling, statistic that stuck out amid the double-digit sales declines of April, one that ought to give dealers some anxiety about the future: Leasing, as a percentage of sales, fell to just 19 percent last month — a significant drop from its pre-COVID level of around 30 percent.
While it may not be the shrewdest long-term financial play for some consumers, leasing has evolved into an important piece of the U.S. auto industry, a piece that should be fully rebuilt and prioritized once production levels stabilize and new-vehicle inventories recover from their historic lows.
For dealers and automakers, robust new-vehicle leasing has historically been a flexible, multilevel strategy that helps build brand loyalty, consumer engagement and customer satisfaction while making the vehicles more affordable on a monthly basis. But for the last couple of years, we've been living through more historic than historical times, and the leasing market has taken it on the chin, as shrinking incentives and rising prices teamed up with relatively low interest rates to make purchases more economically attractive to consumers.