US auto sales fall for sixth straight month as it drags the industry down

Ford, General Motors (GM), Fiat Chrysler and Hyundai all reported US sales drops last month, apparently dragging the industry to its sixth straight month of declining numbers as auto sales slow from last year’s record pace.

Fiat Chrysler sales were down 7.4 per cent, while Ford said its sales declined 5.1 per cent. GM was off 4.7 per cent and Korean automaker Hyundai posted a hefty 19.2 per cent decrease. Analysts are predicting an overall June drop of more than 2 per cent when all sales numbers come in on Monday, even though Toyota, Nissan and Honda each reported small gains.

If June sales fall as expected, sales for the first half of the year would be down for the first time since the financial crisis in 2009.

But Autotrader senior analyst Michelle Krebs said a small dip is not an indication of economic troubles since unemployment is low and consumer confidence remains high. She doesn’t expect a big recovery in the second half of the year, but also doesn’t see a huge decline, predicting full-year sales from between 16.8 million to 17.3 million. That’s below last year’s record of 17.55 million.

“We think the second half could be a little bit stronger than the first half was,” says Krebs, who expects 2016 still to be the fifth-best year on record. “We don’t see any imbalances that suggest anything is going to collapse.”