(1888PressRelease)
November 09, 2008 - London, General Motors led the steep plunge in sales with a 45 percent drop in October while Chrysler LLC said its sales were down 35 percent. Ford Motor Co. announced that its sales of cars and trucks fell 30.2 percent.
Despite offering low-interest loans Toyota said that its sales were 25.6 percent lower than the same period last year.
Sales also dropped at Nissan Motor Co and Honda Motor Co by 33 percent and 25 percent respectively.
While talking about the US auto sector which has been hard-hit by the global slowdown Mark LaNeve, GM's vice president for sales in North America, said in a statement. “If you adjust for population growth, this is probably the worst industry sales month in the post-World War II era,"
"We believe there is considerable pent-up demand from the last three years, but until the credit markets open up and consumer confidence improves, the entire U.S. economy, and any industry like autos that relies on financing, will suffer”
Despite attempts by regulatory bodies to promote normal lending activity, banks continued to restrict lending. The Federal Reserve Survey of banks’ senior loan officers published on Monday revealed that, a large majority of the 76 US and foreign-based survey participants, restricted lending in the past three months on fears of losses and concerns about the economic outlook.
About 60% of US banks tightened lending standards on credit-card loans and other types of consumer loans, while about half said they raised the minimum required credit scores for such loans.
The lending arms of major auto-makers have also introduced new restrictions hindering sales. General Motor Acceptance Cooperation now offers financing only to consumers with high credit score (700 and above) while Chrysler Financial no longer offers leases.
Despite falling gasoline prices, difficulty in finding finance coupled with an increasingly grim economic outlook has kept consumers away.
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