By Ben Klayman
CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. auto sales in April were on the road to plunging to their lowest levels in nearly 30 years according to sales reports released on Friday, the day after Chrysler LLC filed for bankruptcy.
Japan's Toyota Motor Corp <7203.T> posted the largest sales drop at 42 percent among major automakers in the U.S. market, followed by Nissan Motor Co Ltd <7201.T> at 38 percent.
Sales at U.S. automaker Ford Motor Co
Honda Motor Co's <7267.T> sales were off 25 percent.
At Chrysler, which shut down production on Friday as it began the first day of bankruptcy hearings, April sales results were due to be released later in the day.
"Wow, what a month in the last couple of days in the automobile business," Ken Czubay, Ford vice president of sales and marketing, said on a conference call. "Clearly, we continue to operate in a very challenging economic environment."
Detroit and Japan's automakers are expected to post sharp U.S. sales declines of at least 30 percent in April compared with a year ago as the industry deals with the recession.
The weak demand led Chrysler, owned by Cerberus Capital Group
GM, surviving on $15.4 billion of government loans it received at the start of the year, faces similar pressures as it races to win sweeping cost cuts from bondholders and its major union by a U.S. government-imposed June 1 deadline.
U.S. auto sales typically account for as much as one-fifth of all retail sales in the country and represent one of the first indicators of consumer demand every month. Both GM and Chrysler have announced plant shutdowns to slash bloated vehicle inventories.
Ford sales fell to 134,401 vehicles in April including all of its brands, from 196,385 vehicles a year earlier. For just the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brands, sales fell 31.4 percent.
However, officials said Ford gained U.S. market share in April without boosting incentives to draw consumers into dealer showrooms. The industry overall boosted such spending in April by an average of $600 per vehicle compared with last year, Ford said.
Ford, which posted a smaller than expected loss of $1.43 billion in the first quarter, is the only U.S. automaker not operating with emergency U.S. government loans. It expects to have gained U.S. retail market share for the sixth time in seven months in April despite the overall sales decline.
The U.S. automaker is restructuring its operations and said last month that it has been in talks with potential buyers for its Swedish luxury brand Volvo, which saw U.S. sales fall almost 37 percent.
The industry-wide sales rate of cars and light trucks in April on an annualized basis is expected in the low- to mid-9 million unit range, Ford officials said. That would mark the 18th consecutive month of year-over-year declining sales and would be down from 9.9 million in March.
Also on Friday, Daimler AG
(Reporting by Ben Klayman and David Bailey, Poornima Gupta and Soyoung Kim in Detroit)
