DETROIT — General Motors Corp. soundly beat Toyota Motor Corp. in June to retain its traditional U.S. sales lead, but GM sales still dropped 18.2 percent during a dismal month for large automakers.
Toyota's U.S. sales fell 21.4 percent, while Ford Motor Co. said its sales tumbled nearly 28 percent. Chrysler LLC took a huge hit for the month with sales down 35.9 percent.
GM's shares bounced more than 2 percent higher in late trading Tuesday after sinking to their lowest level in more than a half century during Monday's session.
The nation'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 U.S. 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.
Nashville-based Nissan North America experienced similar trends in June, with car sales falling 7.4 percent, while truck sales plunged 36.1 percent. The fuel-efficient Nissan Versa continued to post strong gains, however, as sales increased 17.4 percent for the month.
Overall, the total number of vehicles sold, including from the company's Infiniti line, fell to 75,847 in June, a 17.7 percent drop from June 2007.
For the year, Nissan North America's sales are down 2.4 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. 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.
Chrysler's car sales were off 48.5 percent, while truck sales were down 30.1 percent.
Honda Motor Co., was the only major automaker to report a sales increase in June, a modest 1.1 percent.
A 19.3 percent rise in car sales offset a 24 percent drop in trucks. Ford saw its sales drop 27.9 percent.
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