According to the J.D. Power and Associates midmonth sales report, the US auto sakes particularly at the retail level has dropped by 20.4 percent during the first half of July on a selling-day adjusted basis.
J.D Power tallied the results for the first ten days of the month and basing from the data they've gathered they come with the projection that the overall market is likely to plunge by 6.8 percent in July that is despite the fact that automakers sell as many cars to fleet customers like for instance rental car firms similar to what they did a year ago. The firm has released a copy of its reports to its subscribers last Wednesday.
J.D. Power is also estimating that July sales will see significant growth over the second half of July this is because dealers as well as automakers usually gives additional incentives for cars and trucks for the final weeks of the month.
In case the forecast of J.D. Power do come true, the market could actually be facing an unexpectedly unpleasant start contrary to the expected brighter second half. The industry has been able to surpass the difficult first six months of the year brought about by the never ending increasing of gasoline prices add to it the housing problems that are weighing down on customers.
General Motors Corp. the producer of high quality is continuously experiencing a declining sales figure through July 15 with a drop in sales by almost 40 percent as compared to the same period last year that is of course according to reports of J.D. Power. The world's largest automaker has also made its own projection stating that its July sales will drop by 15.2 percent as compared to its July 2006 sales figures.
GM's decline in July would follow a 21 percent dropped posted in June underscoring the hardships that the automaker is facing as its overall market continuous to slide. The automaker is depending on a stronger US light-vehicle market in the second half to help its retail-sales volume afloat unfortunately the early results for July shows that the market is not keeping up with GM's expectations.
Aside from General Motors, J.D. Power is projecting sales decline for almost all major automaker in the US market during the month. J.D. Power has also said that General Motors could take the biggest hit in July. Ford Motor Co. is once again seen with sales falling by 5.7 percent, while the Chrysler Group is expected to post a 6.6 percent dropped in sales.
John McDonald GM's spokesman has refrained from giving any comments on the company's results while Ford and Chrysler could not be reached for comments.
Detroit's Big Three are not the only once that are to be affected by low sales even Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. are seen with slipping sales figures around 1 percent for Toyota and 5.4 percent for Honda.
J.D. Power and Associates has also reported that rebates for consumers is up by 28 percent while subvented interest rates are down by 61 percent which means that automakers are trying to attract consumers with a blend of discounts and low rate financing.
