Ford sees U.S. pickup truck market stabilizing

By Poornima Gupta

DETROIT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co.(F.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), which makes the best-selling F-Series trucks, expects the full-size U.S. pickup truck market to fall further, but may bottom out at 12 percent of overall auto sales, Cisco Codina, the automaker's North American sales chief, said on Monday .

"We don't see further erosion (in pickup truck sales)," Codina told the Reuters Auto Summit in Detroit. "What we do see is some of the personal use buyers have moved from pickup trucks to cars or smaller SUVs."

Most of Ford's full-size trucks cater to replacement demand from small businesses in industries like construction with some of the sales coming from consumers who buy trucks for personal use.

Codina said even with the slowdown in the housing market, he expects the pickup truck segment to remain strong.

U.S. sales of full-size pickup trucks, which have slowed in recent months on high gas prices and rising interest rates, currently account for about 13 percent of overall U.S. auto sales that is currently tracking at 11.35 million vehicles.

U.S full-size truck sales dropped nearly 14 percent to 1.51 million so far this year.

Codina said he expects the full-size pickup market to "shake out" to around 12 percent of overall sales.

"Certainly smaller than it was but still a very viable part of the business," he said.  Continued...