Wednesday, April 25, 2007

March NPD Retail Outshines February

April 25, 2007

As we reported here, the NPD Data is out.

Ever since the merger was announced, there has been a worry that retail would suffer due to uncertainty.

Well, according to the NPD data, those worries seem to have been overdone. In fact, NPD sales in March were STRONGER than February, which is quite telling because the merger was not announced until February 19th.

In a time period where there seems to be a lot of negative attention surrounding SDARS, the retail news is a breath of fresh air. Consumers, who many feared would remain on the sidelines, actually increased their SDARS purchases over February.

From an investors perspective, stability at retail in combination with increased OEM penetration could be a spark for the sector. Now more than ever, the conference calls for Q1 2007 become a major event for the sector.

News surrounding the retail numbers seemed to be the driver for some share price movement this afternoon. As this information becomes more widely available, it will be interesting to see the reaction of the street.

Stay tuned.