DETROIT,
Feb. 1 - Month after
month, Detroit continues
to lose American
customers to Asian
competitors.
Last
month, it was the
Ford Motor Company
that lost the most, with
sales falling 4.9
percent in January
compared with the same
month a year earlier,
Ward's AutoInfoBank
reported Tuesday. And
financial analysts are
beginning to worry about
the sales pace of some
of Ford's new products.
"Ford's
retail share losses are
alarming," said
Stephen Girsky, an
analyst at Morgan
Stanley. "Their
retail sales are down 11
of the last 12 quarters.
How does your dealer
base generate profit and
cash flow?"
Over
all, industry sales rose
2.3 percent in January,
traditionally the
industry's weakest
month, from the month a
year earlier. Sales for
last month came in at a
seasonally adjusted
annual selling rate of
16.2 million, according
to Ward's AutoInfoBank.
That was considerably
below the sales rate of
18.3 million vehicles of
December, when year-end
deals helped results.
Sales results calculated
by Ward's are adjusted
for the number of
selling days in a
particular month.
The
industry expects sales
to pick back up and keep
pace this year with the
strong levels of last
year. But sales are not
expected to grow beyond
the nearly 17 million
cars and trucks sold in
2004. In an industry
with the capacity to
make roughly 20 million
vehicles, buying a car
is expected to continue
to become cheaper as
competition
intensifies..
"Most
people are saying a flat
year, maybe up 100,000
units, but that's what
we're looking at right
now," said Robert
Cosmai, the president
and chief executive of
Hyundai Motor America.
Hyundai has been one of
the fastest-growing
automakers and is aiming
for 16 percent sales
growth this year. If
every maker met its
goals, Mr. Cosmai said,
"we'd probably have
sales of 20
million."
Since
that is not going to
happen, most analysts
expect that Ford and General
Motors will continue
to lose market share,
and that other
struggling automakers,
notably Mitsubishi,
will continue to post
declines.
One
Detroit company showing
resilience has been the
Chrysler division of DaimlerChrysler,
which has been bolstered
by a rejuvenated sedan
and minivan lineup. In
January, sales at
DaimlerChrysler, which
includes Mercedes-Benz,
were up 7 percent from a
year earlier.
At G.M.,
sales rose 1.1 percent
in January, but the
company said it was
cutting its
first-quarter production
plans even more than
previously thought. G.M.
also said it would bring
back rebates ranging
from $750 to $1,000 that
it had offered in
December on crucial new
models like the
Chevrolet Cobalt,
the Pontiac G6 and the
Buick LaCrosse.
Sales
at Nissan
rose 15 percent, Toyota
sales rose 6.2 percent
and Honda
sales fell 2.1 percent.
Looking
at Ford, financial
analysts said that three
major new products,
built at a plant in
Chicago, appeared to be
selling slowly. The
vehicles - the Ford Five
Hundred and Mercury
Montego sedans and the
Ford Freestyle crossover
wagon - are cornerstones
of Ford's efforts to
recapture the American
car buyer from Asian
automakers. But taken
together, the three
vehicles had fewer sales
than the aging Ford
Taurus in January,
though the majority of
Taurus models are sold
at cut-rate prices to
corporate and rental car
fleets.
"The
Ford numbers looked
particularly bad to me,
and Chrysler's looked
strong," said David
Healy, an analyst at
Burnham Securities.
"Ford to me looks
as if the Chicago
products are off to a
slow start."
On a
conference call Tuesday
to discuss Ford's sales
results, Rob Hinchliffe,
an analyst at UBS, asked
the company: "What
gets the pace going a
little bit?"
George
Pipas, Ford's chief
industry sales analyst,
responded that the
products were building
momentum and were on
track to reach the
company's goal of
combined sales of more
than 200,000 this year.
"January
was a weak month.
There's no point in
sugarcoating the
result," he also
said, speaking of Ford
generally, but he added
that new vehicles were a
bright spot and sales of
them should be expected
to increase at a steady
pace. He likened Ford's
challenge in selling
cars to Nissan's recent
challenge in trying to
introduce its first
large pickup truck.
"Ford's
biggest challenge is to
persuade customers that
we have a serious
passenger car," he
said. "When you
think truck, you think
Ford, but there are very
few customers who think
in the blink of an eye,
'Well, gee, I have to
try out the Ford Five
Hundred,' and we know
that."