Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler captured less than half of the U.S. auto market in July for the first time ever as a housing slump and rising gasoline prices damped demand for new cars and trucks.

GM and Ford, the biggest U.S. automakers, said sales plunged at least 19 percent, and Chrysler's sales fell 8.4 percent. Asian brands led by Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. grabbed a record 44.6 percent of U.S. sales last month, thanks to smaller declines.

The results mark a shift 50 years in the making for the U.S.-based automakers, since Japan's Toyota began exporting vehicles to the U.S., according to Bloomberg data. GM alone had more than 50 percent of the U.S. market in 1962. In July, GM, Ford and Chrysler held only 48.2 percent.

``It's historic,'' said Rebecca Lindland, an analyst with Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts. ``It's painful to see them go below 50 percent.''

The previous low for the traditional U.S.-based automakers was 50.3 percent, in June. The total excludes sales of European brands owned by Detroit-based GM and Ford, of Dearborn, Michigan.

Industrywide sales in July fell 12 percent to 1.31 million vehicles. For the first seven months, sales were down 3.2 percent to 9.55 million, according to Autodata Corp. of Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey.

Consumer `Psychology'

``No one was immune to the weaknesses in the marketplace in July,'' said Jesse Toprak, an auto analyst at Santa Monica, California-based Edmunds.com. ``The demand for new cars is not unlimited.'' The slowing U.S. housing market, he said, ``has an impact on the psychology of the consumer.''

Mortgage applications in the U.S. fell last week to the lowest since mid-February, pulled down by a decline in filings to buy homes, the Mortgage Bankers Association said today. It was the third straight weekly drop in the index. Falling home prices leave homeowners with less equity to tap for extra cash, squeezing consumer spending.

Gasoline near $3 a gallon also is sapping demand for the light trucks that account for more than 65 percent of vehicle sales at U.S.-based automakers. Their Asian rivals are more focused on cars, which are more fuel efficient than trucks.

Monthly sales for all five of the largest automakers -- GM, Ford, Toyota, Chrysler parent DaimlerChrysler AG and Honda -- dropped for the first time since May 2005.

Annual Rate

Automakers sold cars and light trucks at a seasonally adjusted, annual rate of 15.5 million, down from a rate of 17.2 million in July 2006. A Bloomberg survey of seven analysts and 22 economists projected that a rate of 16 million.

``Sooner or later you hit a wall, and that looks like what's happened,'' said Joe Phillippi, an analyst with Autotrends Consulting in Short Hills, New Jersey. ``You can stimulate sales with generous incentives for a long time, but eventually you reach a saturation point and start running out of buyers.''

GM and Ford have sought to lessen their reliance on incentives such as no-interest loans to spur sales. In July 2005, industrywide sales surged 16 percent after GM, Ford and Chrysler offered employee discounts to all customers.

GM, Ford

GM's July sales fell 22 percent, as none of the automaker's eight brands managed a gain for July. Hummer suffered the biggest losses, dropping 30 percent to 4,895.

Sales of GM's cars were off 26 percent, and truck sales declined 20 percent, including a 29 percent slide for the Silverado large pickup. That vehicle accounts for about 15 percent of GM's total sales.

``The industry has been underperforming in the past couple of months. We have housing prices and gas prices around $3 a gallon,'' Paul Ballew, GM's chief sales analyst, said in an interview. ``Overall, it's tough in the U.S.''

Ford's 19 percent July decline included an 18 percent drop in sales of F-Series pickups, the top-selling line of vehicles in the U.S. Ford's lead over Toyota for the No. 2 spot in U.S. sales narrowed during the first seven months to 9,597 from 317,371 a year earlier, according to Autodata.

So-called retail sales to individual consumers fell 17 percent, while sales to rental-car companies plummeted 57 percent, Ford sales analyst George Pipas said on a conference call. Ford has been working to pare such lower-profit fleet sales to help stem losses.

Returning to profit is more important than being passed by Toyota, Pipas said. ``We're way beyond that,'' he said on the conference call. Ford lost a record $12.6 billion in 2006.

Today's DaimlerChrysler results may be the last for which the German company includes Auburn Hills, Michigan-based Chrysler. DaimlerChrysler is preparing to sell an 80.1 percent stake in the U.S. unit to Cerberus Capital Management LP.

Toyota, Honda, Nissan

Toyota's 7.3 percent decline was its biggest in three years. Sales fell for Corolla, Yaris and Scion small cars and light trucks including the Sienna minivan, according to data from the Toyota City, Japan-based company.

Toyota's last monthly sales drop was in April. The company recorded sales increases every month in 2006.

At Honda, fifth in the U.S. market, higher sales of Fit, Civic and Accord cars and CR-V wagons failed to offset declines for Pilot and Element SUVs and Odyssey minivans. Tokyo-based Honda's sales fell 7.1 percent.

Nissan Motor Co. said sales rose 1.7 percent. The gain for the Tokyo-based company was led by the midsize Altima and compact Versa cars, Bill Bosley, North American vice president of sales, said in an interview.

Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's largest automaker and No. 7 in the U.S., said sales fell 7.8 percent.

Market Share

The Asian brands' record market share topped the previous mark of 42.7 percent in June. It was the third time this year that the Asian automakers set a monthly record.

July had 24 selling days, one fewer than a year earlier. The analysts' estimates for GM, Ford and Chrysler adjust for the difference. Bloomberg and some automakers use unadjusted percentage comparisons, which would be about 4 points lower.

GM shares rose 33 cents to $32.73 at 4:22 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Ford declined 8 cents to $8.43 and U.S. shares of Stuttgart, Germany-based DaimlerChrysler lost 89 cents to $89.86.

To contact the reporters on this story: Bill Koenig in Southfield, Michigan at wkoenig@bloomberg.net; Alan Ohnsman in Los Angeles at aohnsman@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: August 1, 2007 17:58 EDT