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Last month was not a good month for most of the auto giants. The Big Three endured dips in sales and only the Chrysler Group enjoyed a little creep upwards. April is shaping up as a particularly weak month for automotive sales, said Brian Johnson, an automotive analyst for the Lehman Brothers, in a note to investors last Friday.

GM sales down four percent

The General Motors Corp. reported 307,554 U.S. light vehicle sales in April, and that number is down by 9.5 percent from the sales of 339,796 during the same month the previous year. In addition, retail sales decreased by four percent, not adjusted for selling days, with truck sales down three percent and car sales at six percent.

The automaker said that about two-thirds of its sales decline was due to a planned reduction in less profitable daily rental sales. GM has slashed its daily rental sales by over 83,000 vehicles in the first four months of the year as it to shift from a focus on selling more vehicles than its competition to selling vehicles that come with hefty profits.

"I would say it's fair to assess the industry... to say it was a bit challenging for the month," said Paul Ballew, GM's chief market analyst. "The final numbers are not as severe as some observers were forecasting." Notwithstanding the cut in the overall April sales, GM executives said they continued to see strength in its newly launched vehicles, including the new GMC Acadia and the GMC Sierra and the Chevrolet Silverado pickups.