DETROIT, April 23: General Motors Corp. said on Wednesday its global sales declined slightly in the first quarter to 2.25 million vehicles on weakness in its home market.

GM officials also estimated that the 0.6 per cent sales drop would place them behind Toyota in the race for world-wide sales leadership for the quarter.

However, officials refused to concede that they would lose the race for the year after having narrowly held onto their 76-year-title of world’s largest automaker by sales last year by a margin of just a few thousand vehicles.

“We were also behind Toyota in the first quarter last year,” Michael DiGiovanni, GM’s director of industry and market analysis said in a conference call.

GM saw strong growth abroad with sales outside North America up eight per cent as sales records were hit in three of its four regions.

Sales outside the United States now make up a record 64 per cent of GM’s total volume.

Those gains were offset, however, by a 10.2 per cent drop in US sales under pressure from a slow economy and a long strike at a key supplier in the United States.

“While the challenges of the US economy continue to put pressure on the automotive industry there, we saw nearly 20 per cent growth in the Latin America, Africa and Middle East and six per cent growth in the Asia Pacific region,” said John Middlebrook, GM vice president for global sales, service and marketing.—AFP