Domestic new-car sales fell 14.4 percent on a daily basis in early July to 175,015 units from 179,026 in the year-earlier period, when there was one fewer sales day.
The July 1-10 results represented the third consecutive decline in 10-day sales, prompting one analyst to remark: ”It has started to rain on the auto industry`s picnic.”
Arvid Jouppi, independent Detroit analyst, said sales had not been down in three consecutive 10-day periods since 1982.
”This is now the first real test for the industry in 35 months,” he said. ”Demand has been strong, sales have been up, and it was easy to sell cars. The industry upscaled its cars to bring back profits and may have neglected the mass market in doing so, the below $22,000 median income family. ”With three sales declines in a row you`d have to say there`s price resistance and there`s no question of that since GM announced a 9.9 percent discount financing program on its luxury C-body cars (Buick Electra, Olds 98, Cadillac DeVille),” he said.
However, industry executives such as Louis Lataif, vice president of sales for Ford Motor Co., insisted the sales decline was no cause for alarm.
”We didn`t expect early July to match the exceptionally strong sales of last year,” he said. Lataif said early July sales on an annualized basis were 8.2 million units versus 9.2 million a year earlier.
In the July 1-10 period General Motors Corp. sold 96,410 cars, down 18.6 percent from a year earlier; Ford sales were off 9.5 percent to 45,803;
Chrysler Corp. sales were down 5.2 percent to 23,631 units; American Motors Corp.`s were off 34 percent to 4,056; Volkswagen`s were down 11.4 percent to 1,239; and Honda`s, 4 percent, to 2,833 units. Nissan, which only began building subcompact cars in the U.S. this year, sold 1,043 Sentras in the period.
For the calendar year to date, the domestic automakers have sold 4.48 million cars, a 1.4 percent increase from the 4.42 million sold in the year-earlier period.
