AutoNation: US automakers to take more share: AUTOSHOW

US automakers will take market share from their Japanese rivals this year in a growing market, the chief executive of the No. 1 US car retailer said on Monday.

"Led by Ford, the domestics are back in the game," AutoNation Inc's Mike Jackson told Reuters Insider at the Detroit auto show. "It's good to see the Americans back in the game or on top of the game, and this year they're going to take share once again. "For the Japanese, it's a new challenge," he added. "They have to compete on something beyond just quality, reliability and resale value." In 2010, US automakers General Motors Co, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler boosted their combined share of US light vehicle sales to 45.7% from 45.1% the previous year, their first gain after decades of losses to Toyota Motor Corp, Honda Motor Co Ltd and others. The Asian brands saw their share slip to 45.7% from 46.3% in a market where sales rose more than 11% to almost 11.6 mn vehicles. That overall market growth snapped a four-year slide that forced Detroit automakers into a wrenching restructuring that included government-directed bankruptcies for GM and Chrysler. Jackson, whose company owns dealers for all three domestic automakers, as well as Toyota, Honda, Nissan Motor Co, Daimler AG's Mercedes and BMW, expects US sales to expand to 12.8 mn this year. That is between the 12.5 mn Toyota expects and the more than 13 mn GM and Ford have forecast. While he believes in the growth of the domestic automakers, which account for about one-third of AutoNation's sales, the company also is looking to expand its small exposure to South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co. AutoNation bought two Hyundai dealers last year to double its total. Jackson said Hyundai is more interested in ensuring the profitability of its dealers by not overexpanding. "They are somewhat more enlightened today than they were in the past and therefore we're more interested," he told Reuters. Jackson also said automakers are better prepared to deal with high gas prices that are expected this year than they were in the summer of 2008, when spiking prices caused consumers to trade in big SUVs for fuel-efficient small cars. "People will be more adjusted to USD 4 a gallon," he said. "Every time you have one of these spikes, it moves upward the freak-out number. The freak-out number in the summer of '08 was USD 3.50 to USD 4.00. The freak-out number now is above USD 4.00, somewhere probably USD 4.50 to $5.00."