Toyota’s U.S. sales trounce American rivals

Honda Motor Co. said its U.S. sales in September were down 7.8 percent from a year earlier after adjusting for the number of sales days in the month.

Honda said that its truck sales rose 7.3 percent, but its passenger car sales dropped 16.4 percent in the month on an adjusted basis. For the first nine months of the year, the Honda’s U.S. sales were up 3.8 percent, the company said.

Analysts had forecast that overall U.S. auto sales would come in at an annual rate of about 16.6 million to 16.8 million units in September.

That would be up from 16.5 million in September 2005, a month when inventories were run down and sales had begun to taper off after a record-breaking summer fueled by employee-level discounts.

The U.S. auto market has been slowing since January, with sales off 4 percent through August, a trend attributed to a weaker housing market, higher interest rates and the earlier rise in gas prices.

Analysts had expected September sales to show a partial recovery for the segment of the market’s hardest hit amid the downturn: mid-size SUVs and full-size trucks.

After climbing above $3 per gallon over this summer, gas prices in the United States tumbled in September, dropping to near $2.30 on average, down about 16 percent over the month.

Both Chrysler and Ford also offered aggressive discounts on unsold 2006 model year trucks and sport utility vehicles in September to clear out inventory.

The downturn in the market for light trucks hit the traditional Big Three U.S. carmakers especially hard because those vehicles are more profitable for manufacturers than passenger cars, which typically sell for less.

In addition, the Detroit-based automakers rely on light trucks for well over half of their total U.S. sales. For GM, the amount is 60 percent, while at Ford it is 62 percent. For DaimlerChrysler the share is an industry-high 75 percent.

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