Just as we are getting used to hearing news of Toyota kicking the stuffing out of Detroit's Three then comes a sudden twist of the story - which still has the Japanese automaker walking all over Detroit's Big Three but this time, we have the at least one of them fighting back. And this remarkable phenomenon happens just last February. Toyota sales came soaring as usual -- reaching 12.2 percent while on the other hand General Motors also showed some remarkable increase surprising the industry when it reported a 3.7 percent year-over-year sales increase for the month.
General Motors has announced that it was able to sell 308, 411 light vehicles in February higher than the 297,481 units it sold a year ago. Likewise sales of GM's light trucks have increased by 7.9 percent to 199,509 units while passenger vehicles fell by 3.3 percent to 108,902. The remarkable increase in sales of the light trucks was boost by the 26.5 percent demand for the Chevrolet Sierra Silverado pickup and the 22.7 percent increase in the sales of the GMC Sierra.
According to Rebecca Lindland, an industry analyst with Boston-based Global Insight, "You can't base everything on one month, but you need to look at some of the new products that they have coming out. They're just sort of gaining some attention from the fact that they are making strides with brands like Saturn."
The rest of GM's Detroit-area competitors as expected plunge to another depressing sales result with Ford Motor Co. leading with 13.5 percent decline followed by DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group with 8.3 percent drop.
Ford blame the 13.5% decline that it has on its ongoing efforts to cut low-profit fleet sales which it say is down by 30 percent year over year. Similarly, Ford also said that there is also a 12 percent drop in sales of its F-Series pickups which is suppose to be the cash cow and the largest-selling vehicle in the US.
The decline in the fleet sales hurts not only Ford but also GM and both said that the sudden shift to focus their attention to a more profitable retail business as part of their North American turnaround strategy.
On the part of the German-American DaimlerChrysler which includes the luxury unit Mercedes it has reported an 8 percent drop with Chrysler further dragging down the Mercedes sales, which makes analysts to wonder if there is still anything else to drag on the Mercedes knowing for a fact that the brand is nearly as flat as the Chrysler.
Toyota in a statement that will surely infuriate its competition said that it had its best February ever with sales reaching 187,330 vehicles. Its car sales rose to 21 percent, trucks increase by 2.4 percent while the sale of its Prius hybrid is still strong with 86.8 percent to 12,227 units sold. The Camry sales also increased by 17.5 percent to 32,148 while its Corolla sales rose by 12.9 percent to 28,321 units.
Despite the strong sales recorded by Toyota for February it was not able to surpass the 210,194 vehicles sold by Ford also in the same month. The Dearborn-based Ford has also reported that its overall sales to retail customers dropped by 8 percent compared to its sales a year ago. Likewise the sales to rental car companies have also reduced by 16,000 vehicles.
Another Japanese automaker, Honda has also reported an increase in sales by 3.2 percent for its truck business while Nissan announced a 1.2 percent sales increase.
The total US car sales for February were down by 0.5 percent from 1.26 million in February of last year to 1.25 million for February this year. The shares of the General Motors, the world's largest automaker and producer of the popular lines of , closed down to 36 cents or 1.13 percent at $31.54 on the NYSE while Ford keeps on declining at 14 cents or 1.77 percent to $7.77. DaimlerChrysler's US shares fell by 56 cents or 0.82 percent to $67.51.
