A senior figure at General Motors (GM) has claimed this week that new auto sales figures released in the US for last month could be the worst seen since way back in 1946.

Officially, the statistics suggest that the annual sales rate for October was 10.7 million, a sharp decline from the 12.5 million recorded in September and 16.1 million in October 2007.

The total is thought to be the lowest since the mid-1970s but Mark LaNeve, GM's North American marketing chief, believes that once population growth is factored in, it "was probably the worst industry sales month in the post-World War II era".

"Until the credit markets open up and consumer confidence improves, the entire US economy, and any industry like autos that relies on financing, will suffer," he added.

GM and Chrysler, who have been locked in talks about a possible merger, were the worst affected, with sales plummeting by 45 per cent and 35 per cent year-on-year respectively.

Furthermore, Toyota recorded a decline of 23 per cent, Ford posted a decrease of 30 per cent and Volvo - which is owned by Ford - saw sales slashed by over a half.

The data are all the more worrying as a drop of just 200,000 to 250,000 units represents the total annual output of one assembly plant.



Source:

Car sales sink to lowest for three decades (04/11/08)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/953d2dd4-aa10-11dd-958b-000077b07658,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F953d2dd4-aa10-11dd-958b-000077b07658.html&_i_referer=