December Car Sales Plunge, Closing Brutal 2008

Major automakers reported U.S. sales in December that plunged by more than a third, closing out the weakest year for the battered industry in over a decade and a half in its largest single market.

Chrysler led the industry lower with sales that dropped by 53 percent in December, a month when the struggling automaker and larger rival GM fought to clinch a $17.4 billion bailout from the U.S. government.

Toyota Motor , the world's largest automaker, posted a sales drop of 37 percent, followed by Honda Motor at 35 percent and Ford Motor at 32 percent. GM and Nissan Motor saw sales drop by 31 percent.

The plummeting sales for December had been widely expected by analysts and industry planners but seemed certain to raise concerns about the depth of the ongoing recession in the early months of 2009.

The sales figures were also the first since the U.S. Treasury extended an initial $8 billion in loans to GM and Chrysler to avoid a cash crunch that both had warned was looming.

Auto sales in Asia and Europe, which followed the U.S. market into a sharp downturn in the second half of 2008, showed signs of a deepening slowdown as well.

Sales across the industry dropped almost 16 percent in France and fell 22 percent in Japan, after a record decline of almost 50 percent in Spain last week. German data is due later this week.

Automakers across the globe are struggling to reduce stocks of unsold vehicles, and many have resorted to temporary plant closures, job cuts and extended holidays for workers.

Ford, the only Detroit automaker that has not sought emergency government funding, said it was braced for initial sales results this year to extend the weakening trend that swept through the industry for most of 2008.

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"The first several months of 2009 are going to feel very much like the last few months of 2008," said Ford economist Emily Kolinski Morris. "We see little to indicate a near-term improvement in either financial market conditions or economic activity."

On a full-year basis, U.S. auto sales were on track to end 2008 at their lowest level since 1992 at about 13.5 million vehicles, based on preliminary sales figures. That was down from 16.2 million in 2007.

That 3 million-unit plunge in sales was the steepest for the industry since 1974, when the U.S. economy was still reeling from the impact of the first oil shock.

U.S. automakers expect a continued decline in 2009 but held out hope that the pace of the losses would ease.

CONTINUED : Ford, GM Shares Move Higher

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