Washington (dpa) – US car dealers sold 10.3 percent more units in 2011 than in the year before, the strongest performance since the recession year of 2008. According to provisional figures from the market research company Autodata Corporation late Wednesday, 12.8 million cars and light trucks were sold in the United States last year. That was a stronger increase than in other car-focused countries like Germany, which only added 8.8 percent to its sales in 2011, according to its car licensing bureau. The strong sales indicated higher confidence in the economy, and a sinking unemployment rate. Market leaders General Motors Corp and Ford Motor Company sold around 2.5 million and 2.15 million units, up 13.2 percent and 11 percent from 2010, respectively. But General Motors vice president of US sales Don Johnson warned: “We're still in recession-like industry size.” Growth was still affected by the slow increase in jobs, he said. Before the recession, it was not unusual for Americans to buy 17 million cars and light trucks in a year, compared to the 12.8 million in 2011. The US sales branch of German carmaker BMW and Daimler AG, owner of the Mercedes brand, sold 306,000 and 267,000 cars, increases of 14.9 percent and 15.7 percent, respectively. That data was based on estimates, after the two German rivals spent the day waiting for each other to release their results first, the report said. The waiting game drew attention in The Wall Street Journal. “They're acting like kindergartners,” an industry official who did not want to be identified quipped to dpa. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/N38Tz Tags: Auto Dealers, Cars, Sales Section: Business, North America
