June was a dismal month for auto sales in the United States, but General Motors hung on to No. 1 by soundly beating Toyota despite an 18.2 percent drop in sales.
Toyota's U.S. sales fell 21.4 percent, while Ford Motor Co. said it sales tumbled nearly 28 percent. Chrysler LLC took a huge hit for the month with sales down 35.9 percent.
America's biggest automaker on Tuesday reported selling 262,329 vehicles for the month, compared with Toyota's 193,234. Some industry analysts had expected Toyota to beat GM in the United States for the first time, but both companies were hurt by a sluggish economy and poor sales of trucks and sport utility vehicles.
Toyota car sales fell 9.4 percent in June while its truck sales were off 38.8 percent.
GM's car sales sank 21 percent in June, while its incentive-boosted truck sales were off 16 percent.
For the first half of the year, GM sales fell 16.3 percent compared with the year-ago period. Toyota sales were down 6.8 percent for the first six months of the year.
Toyota took the global sales lead from General Motors in the first quarter, capitalizing on growth in China and Europe as GM saw its North American sales drag down gains in other markets. GM barely won the global sales race with Toyota last year, but Toyota overtook it as the world's top automaker as measured by global vehicle production in 2007.
Source:Xinhua
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