Reuters reported that General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. plan to introduce discount programs intended to boost sales during the last weekend of June, people familiar with the sales plans said on Friday.
The automakers are expected to roll out the incentive programs for their U.S. dealers next Thursday, just ahead of the Fourth of July holiday, according to two people familiar with early planning for the sales events.
The plans are expected to include some zero-percent-financing offers for GM buyers, they said. The terms of the competing Ford discounts were not immediately available but were expected to be broadly similar, one of the persons said.
Both GM and Ford have held incentive spending largely flat this year as part of an attempt to move away from the kind of blowout sales and volatile monthly sales tallies that dogged results for the Detroit automakers earlier this decade.
Ford spokesman Jim Cain said the automaker had nothing to announce with regard to month-end sales incentives.
Spokesman John McDonald said GM was planning a sales event around July 4 but declined to provide further details.
U.S. automakers typically offer big consumer incentives in the summer months just as they are working down inventory levels in anticipation of a new year of model launches beginning in the fall.
Jess Toprak, analyst at industry tracking service Edmunds, said he expected the discount programs from GM and Ford to target sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks.
He said that would represent a kind of "retaliation" to Toyota Motor Corp.'s announcement last week that it had begun offering rebates of up to $3,500 on its Tundra pickup truck.
Source: http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2007/06/22/052780.html
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