Ford, GM sales fall; Nissan, Toyota up
By Sarah Karush
Associated Press
DETROIT — The two largest U.S. automakers yesterday reported disappointing sales for January, while Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. and Nissan Motor Co. continued to surge ahead in the American market.
Overall, domestic and foreign makers reported a 0.7 percent drop in car and light-truck sales.
General Motors Corp., the world's largest automaker, posted a 1.8 percent decline in new car and truck sales for the month, while Ford Motor Co. reported a "painful" decline of 9.8 percent.
Nissan said its sales soared 25.7 percent, while Toyota's climbed 15.8 percent. Honda sales fell 3.7 percent.
DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group was alone among the traditional "Big Three" domestic automakers to report a positive month, noting a 9.4 percent increase.
Analysts had expected frigid weather in much of the country to offset brisk business at the end of January. But if the weather was a factor, it did not appear to affect all companies.
"Perhaps it only snowed on GM and Ford dealers during the month," quipped David Healy, an analyst with Burnham Securities Inc. "Bottom line, it's the same old story — the Japanese brands are eating Detroit's lunch."
Both GM and Ford saw the biggest declines in their car sales, with GM's car sales down 16.8 percent and car sales for the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brands falling 20.1 percent. Chrysler's car sales also fell, declining 23.2 percent.
GM's truck sales were up 12.8 percent. Ford's truck sales fell 4.7 percent, despite the continuing success of the F-150 pickup. Chrysler sold 21.5 percent more trucks than the previous January.
"The most painful declines from the standpoint of our overall performance are the midsize cars — the Ford Taurus and the Mercury Sable," Ford sales analyst George Pipas said in a conference call with investors. "Painful in the sense that mid-size cars still represent about 20 percent of total new vehicle sales in the United States."
Taurus sales fell 26.6 percent, and Sable sales were down 47.1 percent.
But Pipas said "help is on the way" in the form of two new mid-size sedans, the Ford Five Hundred and the Mercury Montego.
Also going on sale this year, which Ford has dubbed "the year of the car," are a redesigned Focus, a new Mustang, and the crossover Freestyle wagon.
The car introductions mark a shift for Ford, which like other U.S. automakers, has put most of its emphasis on pickups and SUVs in recent years, losing ground in the car market to Japanese companies.
As U.S. automakers have neglected the car market, Japanese companies have gained ground with trucks. Nissan, which last year introduced the Armada, a full-size SUV, and the Titan pickup, saw truck sales soar 65 percent last month. Toyota's truck sales were up 27.4 percent.
