(July 4, 2017) Toyota, Nissan and Honda chalked up modest June gains while the Detroit 3 slipped as the industry posted its sixth straight monthly decline in June according to sales numbers released Monday. Vehicle sales dropped 2.9 percent behind another weak month for cars and lower fleet shipments.

The advances at the biggest Japanese companies were all in the low single-digit range, fueled largely by truck sales. At Honda, deliveries edged up 0.8 percent behind record truck volume. Sales slipped 1.3 percent at the Honda Division but jumped 24 percent at Acura. Truck deliveries rose 1.9 percent to a June record of 70,067.

Toyota reported June sales of 202,376 units. With the same number of selling days in June 2017 compared to June 2016, sales were up 2.1 percent on both a volume and daily selling rate basis. Lexus, however, showed it ninth straight monthly decline, dipping 5.4 percent year-over-year.

“The auto industry has cooled off compared to last year’s record-breaking pace,” said Jack Hollis, group vice president and general manager, Toyota division. “In the first half, however, Toyota held its No. 1 retail brand status, as we were able to outperform the industry, thanks to our incredible dealers gaining momentum in the 2nd quarter, especially in light trucks and SUVs."

Nissan said June deliveries rose 2 percent, with volume up 1.2 percent at the Nissan brand and 11 percent at Infiniti.

Ford retreated 5.1 percent after posting its first sales gain of the year in May. General Motors deliveries fell 4.7 percent while continuing to point to a reduction in lower-profit sales to daily rental fleets.

Fiat Chrysler was down 7 percent.

At General Motors, sales of Chevrolet were off 6.4 percent, 3.6 percent at GMC and 12 percent at Cadillac. Buick, behind demand for the new Envision crossover, saw sales rise 16 percent. GM's sales have now dropped four out of six months this year. GM said June daily rental fleet shipments dropped by 11,000 vehicles, or 54 percent, over June 2016.

As has been the case throughout the year, the results were marked by steep declines in car sales — down 14 percent for the month — even amid rising incentives. Truck deliveries edged up 4.2 percent.

The seasonally adjusted, annualized sales rate came in at 16.54 million, the lowest pace of sales of the year and slightly below the 16.6 million average estimate of analysts polled by Bloomberg. June marked the fourth straight month the SAAR has dropped below 17 million after six straight months above that threshold, including 18.38 million in December. U.S. light-vehicles sales are now down 2.1 percent for the year.

Sources: Automotive News, manufacturers