Ford US January sales to fall 20 percent

DETROIT, Jan 31 (Reuters) Ford Motor Co.'s US sales will likely fall 20 percent in January due to lower fleet sales, the automaker's sales analyst said on Wednesday.

At a briefing for Ford's 2007 sales outlook, George Pipas told reporters the automaker's U.S. January fleet sales would fall 40 percent, driven by a 60-percent decline in daily rental sales.

''This is not going to be the biggest decline in fleet sales,'' Pipas said, adding that there would be double-digit declines in fleet sales every month.

Pipas also said he expected Ford's fleet sales to be ''just north of 700,000'' in 2007, down from 900,000 units a year earlier.

Ford's announcement came just a day before automakers are expected to report U.S. January sales.

General Motors Corp. also last week said it will cut its daily rental sales by 120,000 units in the first half of 2007, with almost a third of the reduction in January.

The cuts are part of an effort to move away from low-margin sales as U.S. automakers try to recover from billions of dollars in losses and shrinking U.S. market share.

''Our aim is to stabilize our retail market share,'' Mark Fields, Ford's president of the Americas, told reporters at the briefing.

Ford lost .7 billion in 2006, as high gas prices and interest rates drove consumers away from trucks and sport utility vehicles, which had accounted for most of its sales and profits.

Pipas on Wednesday said he expects industry sales in the pickup truck segment to remain flat at about 2.2 million to 2.3 million units.

Ford, which is in the early stages of a four-year turnaround plan that includes closing 16 plants and cutting up to 45,000 jobs, has said it will lose U.S. market share through the third quarter as it pulls back from sales to car rental companies and other fleet operators.

Ford has also cut its first-quarter production target in North America to 740,000 vehicles, a 15.5 percent decline from a year earlier.

Reuters SBA VP0138