US automakers posted big sales gains in June amid strong demand for their more fuel-efficient vehicles, with Chrysler sales jumping 30 per cent, Ford up 14 per cent and General Motors up 10 per cent.
Chrysler marked its 15th consecutive month of year-over-year sales gains and its best June since 2007 with sales of 120,394 vehicles. That helped boost its results for the first half of the year by 21 per cent to 639,932 vehicles.
'This business is all about product and consumers are rapidly discovering everything we now have,' Reid Bigland, Chrysler's sales chief, said in a statement.
'Each Chrysler Group brand is contributing to our success and driving our 46 per cent retail sales growth.'
Chrysler, which got back in the black in the first quarter of this year for the first time since emerging from bankruptcy in 2009, has completely revamped its product offerings and was one of the only big carmakers to post a sales gain last month.
Auto sales have taken a hit from supply shortages caused by Japan's devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami, but production has been ramping up rapidly and automakers said they expect sales to resume their recovery from the deep economic downturn.
'We believe that the recovery will go back on track,' Don Johnson, GM vice-president for US sales, said in a conference call.
'We are not cutting our forecast.'
GM's sales for the first six months of the year were up 16.8 per cent at nearly 1.3 million vehicles after June sales rose to 215,358 units.
Source : New Age
