Ford, GM Sales Fall in February; Toyota Gains
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Sales for the two largest automobile manufacturers in America, the Ford Motor Company and the General Motors Corporation, fell for the second-straight month in February, their officials said yesterday.
But DaimlerChrysler AG, the no. 3 American automaker, and the Toyota Motor Corporation, the biggest Asian manufacturer, said that sales grew.
Sales of GM cars and light trucks dropped 13% in February from a year earlier, and Ford’s dropped 2.9%, including declines for the Explorer and F-Series trucks. According to Bloomberg News, the two companies announced further cuts in North American production.
Toyota Motor Corporation, Nissan Motor Company, and Hyundai Motor Corporation, reported increases of more than 10%, a Bloomberg report said.
American automakers are losing sales and market share as Asian automakers speed their introduction of new vehicles, especially light trucks. The Asians boosted their combined American market share in January to 36.3% from 35.6% a year earlier.
American-based automakers, not including their European- brands, saw their January market share fall to 57.3% from 58.1%, according to Bloomberg.
Ford said it will cut North American production 1.2% in the second quarter and further reduce output in the current quarter.
The second-quarter plan is 940,000 vehicles, a drop from 951,000 a year earlier, the company said. The automaker also said it will build 910,000 cars and trucks this quarter, a decrease from its 920,000 forecast on January 25 and 1.01 million a year earlier.
GM said it intends to build 1.25 million vehicles in the second quarter, down 10% from a year earlier. GM also revised its first-quarter production for the region to 1.18 million vehicles, down 45,000 from last month’s forecast of 1.225 million and down from 1.345 million vehicles in 2004’s first quarter.
General Motors, based in Detroit, said all of the company’s brands had declines, including 8.5% at Chevrolet, 3.3% at Cadillac, 10% at GMC, 19% at Pontiac and 13% at Hummer.
“Given the headwinds that are out there and the competitive pressures in the industry, it remains clear to us we have to pick up the pace,” Paul Ballew, GM’s executive director of global market and industry analysis said on a conference call. “But there’s no magic solution to suddenly improving your competitive condition.”
