Auto Sales Expected to Mirror Recent Trend

U.S. sales of vehicles are expected to have followed a familiar path last month, with General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. losing market share to nimble foreign rivals led by Toyota Motor Corp., analysts said.

Toyota and other Asian automakers have been relentlessly stealing U.S. sales from Ford and GM, which have been struggling with excess inventory and a shift in buyers’ tastes from larger sport utility vehicles.

GM sales analyst Paul Ballew told reporters last week that his company’s U.S. retail and fleet sales were expected to be down in March from a year earlier. He also expected the overall industry to come in lower.

With automakers preparing to report today, analysts expect U.S. sales of GM to be off 2% to 6% from a year earlier.

Merrill Lynch analyst John Murphy said benefits from GM’s new GMT900 series of SUVs, which the automaker hopes will revive sales, are still a way off.

Murphy expects Ford sales to have declined about 7% in March.

“Ford’s light-truck sales continue to plummet and now face the additional pressure of GM’s new SUVs,” he said. “Ford car sales, however, should be stable on the success of the new Fusion, Milan and Zephyr.”