January a drag for automakers

All major automakers except for General Motors Corp. saw their U.S. sales drop in January to start what industry analysts have predicted would be the worst auto sales year in the United States in more than a decade.

GM, led by strong sales in crossover vehicles, reported an increase of 2.6% in January compared with the same month last year.

But Toyota Motor Corp., which saw strong growth last year, said Friday that its January light vehicle sales dropped 2.3%, to 171,849 from 175,850 in January 2006. Its performance still was strong enough to beat Ford for the No. 2 U.S. sales spot.

GM said Friday that it sold 250,926 light vehicles in January, up from 244,614 in the same month last year. It saw the increase despite cutting low-profit sales to rental fleets by 6% last month to a total of 26% of sales. The world’s largest automaker by sales said its car sales rose 0.2%, while truck sales were up 4.3%.

GM’s truck increase was fueled by strong sales of its new crossover vehicles -- the Buick Enclave, Saturn Outlook and GMC Acadia -- which the company said had a combined sales increase of 134%.

Mark DiGiovanni, GM’s executive director of global market and industry analysis, said January’s results followed a multiyear effort to improve products and regain market share.

“This isn’t a one-hit wonder,” DiGiovanni said. “It’s not a one-month blip. It’s a 2 1/2 -year trend.”

Toyota saw car sales fall 5.7% largely because of an 18.7% drop in sales of its Corolla small car. But truck sales were up 2.2%, including a 91% increase in Tundra pickup sales.

At Ford Motor Co., sales declined 4% even when compared with a weak performance a year ago.

The company said it sold 159,355 light vehicles for the month as it continued a strategy to wean itself from low-profit rental car sales.

George Pipas, Ford’s top U.S. sales analyst, said sales to daily rental fleets were down 5% in January.

Chrysler saw its U.S. sales drop 12.1% as the company tried to cut fleet sales. Chrysler’s car sales were up more than 25% year over year, but truck sales dropped 23.5%.

Nissan Motor Co. sales slipped 7.3% for January when compared with the same month a year ago. The company reported selling 76,605 vehicles for the month, down from 82,644 a year ago. Car sales dropped 6.9% while truck sales dived 7.9%, the company said.

Honda Motor Co. sales fell 2.3% from 100,790 in January 2007 to 98,511 last month.

Ford’s car sales dropped 10.3%, while its truck sales slipped 0.7%. Ford said sales of its crossover vehicles -- the Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX -- improved with Edge sales up 95% and MKX rising 78%. A revamped Focus small car saw sales increase 44%.

But sales of sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks, Ford’s traditional cash cows, fell. Sales of F-series pickups, the top-selling vehicles in the U.S., dropped 8.4%, while Explorer SUV sales fell 18.7% compared with January 2007.