Detroit – U.S. automakers, battered in recent years by high gas prices, sales declines and billions in losses, took another hit Wednesday when their collective share of the American market dropped below 50 percent for the first time.
The drop likely will further damage the psyche of the Detroit area, which in the past week glimpsed a bit of hope when Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. posted quarterly profits.
Jesse Toprak, senior analyst for the automotive website, and Jeff Schuster, executive director of global forecasting for J.D. Power and Associates, each said foreign-based automakers took more than half the U.S. market for the first time, citing sales data released by the companies Wednesday.
Autodata Corp., an industry sales-tracking company, pegged the market share controlled by Chrysler, Ford and GM at 49.5 percent, including foreign nameplates they own such as Saab, Volvo, Land Rover and Jaguar. Excluding the foreign nameplates, Detroit’s market share drops to 48.1 percent.
The Detroit automakers’ share was as high as 77.4 percent in 1984, according to Autodata, which has tracked auto sales since 1980.
The market-share drop came during a month in which all automakers but Nissan Motor Co. saw sales declines.
GM sales dropped 22.3 percent when compared with a strong July 2006, while Ford declined 19.1 percent and Chrysler dropped 8.4 percent.
Even Toyota Motor Corp., which had been posting strong gains most of the year, reported a decline of 7.4 percent compared with July 2006, when Toyota set a record. Last month, Toyota saw its lowest daily sales rate since August 2004.
The fact that foreign nameplates now control more than half the U.S. market will mean little to the average consumer, Toprak said.
“It’s probably a turning point for people who look at the record books. Domestics on their home turf are being beaten by the foreign automakers in terms of their market share,” he said.
But George Pipas, Ford’s top sales analyst, said the drop doesn’t mean much to anyone since the Detroit Three have been below 50 percent share of retail sales before. Retail sales do not include sales to rental-car companies and fleet buyers.
“I don’t think it is particularly significant,” Pipas said during a conference call with reporters and industry analysts.
