Chrysler Group sales increase 10% in May

Chrysler Group sales increase 10% in May
Showing the power of its fresh-ened lineup, Chrysler Group reported its best May sales since 2008, USA Today reported.
The Wall Street Journal said that Chrysler Group’s U.S. sales rose 10 percent in May on higher truck vol-ume and robust growth at the Jeep® brand. It was the 14th con-secutive month Chrysler re-ported overall growth from prior-year levels. So far this year, Chrysler’s sales have climbed 20 percent from the like period a year earlier, the Wall Street Journal said.
Chrysler Group’s sales in-crease bucked an industry slide last month, CNNMoney reported.
Chrysler Group sales chief Fred Diaz, quoted in a Yahoo! News story, said: “Our retail sales were up 27 percent in May, driven in large part by our new models. Ram pickup trucks and all of our Jeep brand models posted sales increases in May, despite high, fluctuating gas prices."
“Chrysler today has the best product mix they’ve had in a long time,” said Truecar.com industry analyst Jesse Toprak,
The Jeep® brand drove Chrysler Group’s overall gain, the Detroit Free Press said, with Grand Cherokee sales that nearly tripled to 9,484 compared to May 2010.
CNNMoney reported. Chrys-ler’s cars and SUVs have al-most all been changed or re-placed in the past year, CNN-Money added.
Meanwhile, the broader U.S. auto industry suffered its first significant setback in more than 18 months, with higher vehicle prices, Japanese sup-ply shortages and economic jitters, the Journal said. Rivals Ford Motor and General Mo-tors reported respective sales declines of 0.1 percent and 1.2 percent for the month, the story said.
Sales of the revamped Chrysler 200 more than dou-bled the year-earlier perfor-mance of the Chrysler Sebring it replaced with 7,098 units sold in May, the Detroit Free Press said. to 9,484, the news-paper added.