General Motors Canada June sales down 23.8 per cent: trucks slide 35 per cent

By The Canadian Press

TORONTO - General Motors of Canada has reported a 23.8 per cent skid in June sales as truck sales plummeted more than 35 per cent compared with a year ago.

The Canadian vehicle market leader said Wednesday its sales totalled 32,365 cars and light trucks last month, hit by high gasoline prices. That was down from 42,466 in June 2007.

Truck sales fell by 35.3 per cent from a year ago to 14,243, while GM's Canadian passenger-car sales dropped 11.5 per cent to 18,122.

"GM Canada's June sales reflected the significant ongoing market impact of rising gas prices and the resulting further consumer shift toward cars and smaller crossovers," stated Marc Comeau, the automaker's vice-president of sales.

"GM is shifting production and adjusting on-the-ground inventories to address demand."

Those production shifts provoked labour unrest as Canadian Auto Workers members blockaded the company's headquarters in Oshawa, Ont., last month to protest the announced closure of GM's pickup truck plant east of Toronto next year.

Honda Canada also experienced a sales slowdown, although not as dramatic. Its Honda and Acura divisions sold a total of 16,518 vehicles, down two per cent from June 2007.

Honda said this decline reflected a shortage of inventory of its most fuel-efficient models, the subcompact Fit and the Ontario-assembled compact Civic. Honda-badged sales slipped one per cent to 14,918 units while deliveries for the upscale Acura brand receded 15 per cent to 1,600.

German luxury carmaker BMW, meanwhile, enjoyed its best June ever. BMW sales were up 6.3 per cent from a year earlier at 2,943, while sales in its Mini division surged by half to 621.