US May auto sales down on weak demand for sedans; fewer selling days

The United States May auto sales weakened, with major automobiles companies recording steep drop in unit sales, owing to fall in demand for sedans and fewer selling days in the same month. Companies like General Motors and Ford Motor led the decline with a major slump.

The auto selling rate for the month came in at 17.45 million. Forty economists polled by Reuters expected on average a seasonally adjusted selling rate of 17.3 million vehicles for May, not greatly changed from April but down from 17.8 million a year earlier.

In 2015, vehicle sales were a record 17.47 million vehicles, according to Autodata Corp. Ford, which on Wednesday reported a 6 percent drop to 235,997 vehicles from a year earlier, estimated a sales decrease of about 8 percent for the US industry in May.

GM, the largest U.S. automaker, said its sales fell 18 percent to 240,450 vehicles, a steeper decline than analysts had expected, reports said.

"May auto sales data boosted our tracking estimate of Q2 real consumption growth one-tenth to 3.4 percent, but kept our Q2 GDP tracking estimate unchanged at 2.2 percent after rounding," Barclays mentioned in a report.

Toyota Motor, the third largest in the U.S. market behind GM and Ford, said its sales dropped 9.6 percent to 219,339 vehicles. Cars' share of Toyota's sales fell to 49 percent from 53 percent in May 2015. Meanwhile, Honda Motor's sales fell 4.8 percent, but counter to most automakers, the decline was steeper for its trucks and SUVs than for cars.