Chrysler targets overseas growth; plan on track

By Karey Wutkowski

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Automaker Chrysler LLC has posted double-digit sales growth overseas over the past two months and expects to almost double sales outside North America by 2012, Chief Executive Bob Nardelli said on Wednesday.

Nardelli, speaking at the New York auto show, also said Chrysler did not see the need to push for deeper cost reductions in its loss-making U.S. operations based on the weak start to 2008 sales in its home market.

"We do not see a need to adjust, based on what we've seen in the first couple of months," Nardelli told reporters.

Separately, Chrysler sales chief Jim Press said the company expects to post a "big" decline in March U.S. sales from a year earlier, reflecting the automaker's decision to pull back from less profitable deals for car rental agencies.

Chrysler had built its turnaround plan around a cautious forecast for the U.S. auto market and would not need to see a recovery emerge in the second half to stay on its plan, he said. After losing $1.6 billion in 2007, Chrysler was moving "in the direction of profitability," Nardelli said.

The U.S. auto market has slumped by a wider margin than most analysts had anticipated last summer, when Cerberus Capital Management LP CBS.UL completed its acquisition of an 80 percent stake in Chrysler.

J.D. Power and Associates, the influential industry tracking service, on Tuesday cut its 2008 forecast for U.S. sales of cars and light trucks by 5 percent to 14.95 million, which would be the lowest total since 1994.

Chrysler's current forecast for a slump in the U.S. auto market through the end of 2008 contrasts with the outlook still held by some of Chrysler's larger rivals, including General Motors Corp (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Toyota Motor Co. (7203.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)(TM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)