CHICAGO – As the month comes to a close and automakers prepare to report February’s sales, Jesse Toprak, chief analyst for Cars.com, reported this week that he expects new-vehicle sales to improve 1.1% from a year ago to 1.2 million units. He also put the seasonally adjusted annual rate at 15.4 million, which, if realized, would reflect the highest sales rate since February 2008.

“As the industry continues to gain strength, February car sales have the potential to reach their highest rate in six years,” said Toprak. “The positive impact of the recovering stock market has been dampened by ongoing severe weather conditions; however, year-over-year new-vehicle sales show that the industry is pushing to surpass the mark set in 2013.”

According to Toprak’s analysis, the compact SUV segment is seeing a particularly high increase in demand. “Consumers can’t get enough small SUVs,” said Toprak. “The segment’s market share reached a record high 18 percent this month, up from 15 percent this time last year.”

The analyst also put new-vehicle sales at 1.21 million units, up 1.1 percent from February 2013 and up 19.3 percent from January 2014, while his outlook for February’s selling rate would be up 0.5% from one year ago and up 1% from January if realized.

Retail sales are expected to account for 79.3 percent in February 2014, down 4.2 percent from February 2013.

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