Ford sees sharp drop in U.S. sales

By Kevin Krolicki

DEARBORN, Mich (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co (F.N) expects industry-wide December U.S. auto sales to drop by some 35 percent from a year earlier with no sign of a turnaround in the first quarter of this year.

Ford, the No. 2 U.S. automaker, expects that full-year sales of light vehicles in the world's largest market will drop to near 13.2 million for 2008, down from near 16.2 million in 2007, Ford's chief sales analyst George Pipas said on Friday.

The only other time the U.S. auto industry has seen a similar 3-million unit plunge in sales over the course of a single year was during 1974 in the wake of the first oil shock, Pipas told reporters.

Major automakers are set to release December and full-year 2008 sales data on Monday. Analysts have said they see December light-vehicle sales slipping below the 10.2 million unit sales rate recorded a month earlier.

Annualized auto sales rates have declined on a quarter-to-quarter basis throughout 2008. The sales rate fell from 15.6 million vehicles in the first quarter to an estimated 10.6 million in the fourth quarter. Those figures include medium and heavy-duty truck sales of about 300,000 units on an annual basis.

"The sales rates have declined like a lead balloon, really," Pipas said. "I think when December comes in every segment will be down. Not one segment will be up versus a year ago."

"We're not looking for the first quarter to be much different from what we saw in the fourth quarter," Pipas said.

The sharpest sales declines in 2008 came in full-size SUVs, a gas-guzzling category that U.S. consumers abandoned during the spring and summer spike in oil prices.