U.S. '10 auto sales may top 11.5 million units: JD Power

DETROIT (Reuters) - U.S. autos sales may rise nearly 15 percent to reach 11.5 million units next year, ending a punishing four-year decline that saddled major automakers with mounting losses, an influential industry forecaster said on Wednesday.

"We do see the credit market is a little better. The financial market is stabilizing. Consumer confidence is edging along," Gary Dilts, senior vice president at J.D. Power & Associates, told Reuters in an interview.

"We're pretty confident that unless something really goes wrong, 2010 is going to be a million or a million and half units better than this year," Dilts said.

Forecasts from J.D. Power are one of the benchmarks that auto manufacturers and suppliers use to plan for future production. The forecast for a recovery in 2010 comes at a time when the industry is gearing up to increase output on the view that the worst of the current downturn has passed.

J.D. Power had projected U.S. light vehicle sales of 10 million units for 2009, down sharply from 13.2 million units last year and 16.2 million units in 2007.

Dilts said the industry forecasting firm may raise its outlook for 2009 U.S. industrywide sales by 200,000 units, taking into account the runaway success of the U.S. government's "Cash for Clunkers" incentives to trade in old gas guzzlers for more fuel-efficient vehicles.

The program helped boost July auto sales to the highest annualized rate of 2009 to date, raising guarded optimism among industry executives and analysts that the market had hit bottom after a severe downturn that forced General Motors Co GM.UL and Chrysler Group LLC to restructure in bankruptcy.

Congress authorized another $2 billion for the program after rebates exceeded the $1 billion funding initially allocated.

Dilts said August would continue to show the stabilizing trend of recent months, with retail light vehicle sales expected to be flat with a year earlier.

Retail sales for the month could total 11 million units on an annualized basis, unchanged from August last year, he said.

Combined with sales to fleet customers such as car rental agencies and businesses, August light vehicle sales are expected to come in at 12 million units on the annualized basis, down from 13.7 million units last year, Dilts said.

(Reporting by Soyoung Kim, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)