US consumers shied away from car dealerships in February amid rising economic uncertainty which cut deeply into the sales of both the Big Three US carmakers and popular Japanese rival Toyota.
Those who did make it into the showroom often sought more fuel-efficient options as sales continued to shift away from trucks and large sport-utility vehicles, giving Japan's Honda Motors an edge with its fleet of fuel-sipping cars.
Honda posted record February sales of 115,397 vehicles yesterday, a 0.7% increase over last year.
Toyota, which posted 12 years of record sales growth in a row in the US, has now recorded three straight months of losses as sales fell 6.6% to 182,169 vehicles in February as it failed to maintain momentum.
Toyota, which overtook Ford last year for the number two spot in the US market, slipped back behind Ford in February even as the Detroit group reported a decline of 6.9% to 196,681 vehicles.
The losses were felt across all Ford brands and Ford announced plans to trim production by 10% in the second quarter to 730,000 vehicles and cut 2,500 jobs at three US plants as it expands a massive restructuring plan.
General Motors reported a 13% drop in sales to 270,423 vehicles amid 'tough market conditions.' GM said despite the decline, it is expected to hold its retail share for the first two months of 2008.
Chrysler also posted significant losses as sales fell 14% to 150,093 vehicles. The number three US car-maker, which was bought by private equity investors last year, attributed the decline to weak economic conditions along with planned cuts in low-margin sales fleet sales.
While demand is expected to pick up later in the year, the shift away from high-margin trucks and sport-utility vehicles will continue to hit the bottom lines of US car makers.
Total light car sales fell an adjusted 7.3% to 1.18 million vehicles for a seasonally-adjusted annualised rate of 15.38 million units in February, according to Autodata. That was up slightly from a rate of 15.24 million units in January but off significantly from the seasonally-adjusted annualised rate of 16.56 million units in February 2007.
