US auto sales fell 34.4 percent last month as the industry held near the lowest levels in nearly 30 years and closed out the month with Chrysler LLC filing for bankruptcy protection.
The talk of bankruptcy surrounding Chrysler and General Motors Corp, which faces similar pressures, only spooked consumers last month and led to weaker-than-expected industry results, executives and analysts said.
“Clearly, the uncertainty, the bankruptcy talk, has really affected the entire industry,” GM chief sales analyst Mike DiGiovanni said on a conference call, adding retail sales had hit a wall in the last week of last month.
US auto sales came in at a 9.32 million seasonally adjusted annual rate last month, according to Autodata Corp, below the 9.8 million rate that analysts had expected. The annualized rate of US auto sales is a closely watched indicator of economic activity.
That marked the 18th consecutive month of year-on-year declining sales and a drop from 9.86 million in March.
However, executives at several automakers also pointed to signs of stability in the market.
“While April sales weren’t much to call home about, there are signs that the sales contraction is nearing its end,” said Bob Carter, general manager of Toyota Motor Corp’s flagship brand in the US.
Chrysler, which shut down production on Friday as it began the first day of bankruptcy hearings, posted a 48 percent drop in sales, the largest among the major automakers in the US market, followed by Toyota and Nissan Motor Co Ltd with declines of 42 and 38 percent, respectively.
Sales at Ford Motor Co slid almost 32 percent last month, while sales at GM, which like Chrysler has been operating under federal supervision, fell 34 percent. Honda Motor Co Ltd’s sales were off 25 percent.
Ford officials said the firm gained US market share last month without boosting incentives to draw customers. The industry overall boosted such spending last month by an average of US$600 per vehicle from last year, it said.
GM said it also gained slightly in market share, while Toyota officials vowed not to match other automakers’ job-loss protection incentives.
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