Import autos poised to top Big Three

[Analog]

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Sales plunged worse than expected at U.S. automakers in July, putting import brands on the verge of overtaking their domestic rivals for the first time, even as weak demand for autos spread to Asian manufacturers.

Combined, the U.S. automakers - General Motors, Ford Motor and the Chrysler Group unit that is being sold by DaimlerChrysler - reported a nearly 19 percent decline in sales in July, compared to single-digit declines or even modest gains reported by most overseas automakers in the period.


Overall U.S. sales were weaker than expected. Experts and some automakers pointed to concerns about the housing markets and gasoline prices as weighing on American consumers who might have been considering a auto purchases.

"No one was immune to this weakness in the marketplace," said Jesse Toprak, executive director of industry analysis for sales tracker Edmunds.com.

Toprak said that even though final figures were not in on industry wide sales, it appeared that the domestic brands would finally slip below a combined 50 percent market share in July for the first time. The 50.2 percent combined share held by the three in June was their previous low.

 

[bctbct]

The Big 3 posting profits is more important than beating the number of sales.

 

[theeedude]

Originally posted by: bctbct
The Big 3 posting profits is more important than beating the number of sales.

Exactly. If you are profitable, even on lower market share, you can invest the profits into new products and fight back. Seems to me like it's a good thing that the domestics are trying to become profitable first and not do stupid stuff just to keep market share. Organic market share is good, market share through fire sales is not.

 

[Strk]

Originally posted by: senseamp

Originally posted by: bctbct
The Big 3 posting profits is more important than beating the number of sales.

Exactly. If you are profitable, even on lower market share, you can invest the profits into new products and fight back. Seems to me like it's a good thing that the domestics are trying to become profitable first and not do stupid stuff just to keep market share. Organic market share is good, market share through fire sales is not.

Yeah. You can almost compare what they're trying to do with what Honda does. As far as global production is concerned, they're one of the smallest global auto producers, yet they're making plenty of cash -- more than most of the large auto producers.