Year-on-year sales figures for Ford, Chrysler and General Motors' (GM) automobiles in the US show the domestic car manufacturers are still losing market share to overseas marques.

Statistics for March reveal that GM sold 345,418 cars, while Ford shifted 264,975 of its vehicles, representing declines of four per cent and nine per cent respectively.

Meanwhile, unit sales for DaimlerChrysler, which also includes the Dodge and Jeep brands, fell 4.6 percent to 206,435.

However, Toyota's market share continues to grow, with demand for its new pickup truck and market-leading hybrid vehicles helping the Japanese marque to record sales of 242,675.

Even so, with sales for GM and Ford slightly above projected forecasts following a slump in February, the figures mean that the American brands are likely to retain a 50 per cent share of the domestic car market.

News of the continued decline of the US automobile industry comes at a time when analysts have predicted that car sales will slump this year, as the decline in the US subprime mortgage market continues to eat into customers' disposable incomes and forces lenders to reconsider their car loan practices.

Sources:

'Bad news for all major US car makers as Japan profits', 4/4/07
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/04/04/cnuscars04.xml

'Asian automakers show strong growth in U.S. market', 4/4/07
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/04/business/cars.php

'Big Three sales slide continues', 3/4/07
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