AUTOMOTIVE SECTOR
Aggressive discounting boosts US car makers’ sales
Southfield, Michigan — Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, General Motors (GM) and Ford Motor all reported a surprise bump in March sales as more aggressive industry discounting gave car makers a boost. GM said its March sales surged 16%, triple the gain analysts had been expecting. Ford’s light-vehicle sales rose 3.5%, outpacing the 0.8% gain analysts had been forecasting. "March [was] a strong start to the spring selling season for Ford and the industry," said Mark LaNeve, US sales chief at Ford. Fiat Chrysler boosted car and light-truck deliveries 14%, beating analysts’ average estimate for a 1.9% increase. Sales for the Jeep sport utility vehicle brand soared 45%, driven by a more than sixfold surge for the compact Compass. Most vehicle makers were expected to report small increases for March, which had one more selling day than the year-earlier month. The annualised pace of sales, adjusted for seasonal trends, was probably about 16.8-million vehicles. That would match the rate in March ...
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