GM sees gains in pickup truck segment

By Jui Chakravorty

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp.'s (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) new warranty program will give the automaker an edge in the highly competitive market for full-size pickup trucks, a segment where GM will likely gain market share in the near term, a top company executive told Reuters on Wednesday.

Brent Dewar, vice president of sales, service and parts, also said that the world's largest automaker is on target to sell 3 million vehicles in U.S. showrooms this year, almost unchanged from 2005.

"We're on track ... It's going to be almost flat year-over-year," he said at the Reuters Auto Summit in Detroit.

"We had some tough (comparisons) in the June-July time frame," he said. "We will beat our retail numbers on the back half of the year."

GM is trying to recover from a $10.6 billion loss in 2005. The company's near-term strategy hinges on selling new pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles -- models with the largest profit margins -- to help revive North American operations.

Last year, GM spearheaded a massive incentive program that offered employee discounts to all consumers, boosting sales through the summer by luring people into showrooms sooner, but subsequently weakening sales for the rest of the year.

In keeping with its recently-launched plan for clearer pricing and reduced spending on incentives, GM has cut its incentive-spend by $900 per vehicle, on average, so far this year, Dewar said.

GM's new five-year, 100,000-mile powertrain warranty on 2007 models will help the carmaker take sales from rival brands in the pickup truck market, a segment that has suffered because of declining U.S. housing starts and higher interest rates.  Continued...