DaimlerChrysler November 2006 Sales Conference Call - Final.

Original Source: FD (FAIR DISCLOSURE) WIRE

OPERATOR: Welcome to today's Chrysler Group sales teleconference call. Following today's presentation, there will be a formal question and answer session. At that time, instructions will be given, and until that time, all lines will remain in a listen-only fashion. At the request of the call leader, today's call will be recorded. Any objections, you may disconnect at this time.

I would now like to turn the call over to Ms. Lori McTavish. Ma'am, you may begin when you're ready.

LORI MCTAVISH, CORP. MEDIA RELATIONS, DAIMLERCHRYSLER: Thank you for joining us for our November sales call. This afternoon, we have Steven Landry, our Vice President of Sales and Field Operations; and Mike Manley, our Vice President of Sales, Strategy and Dealer Operations. Each of the guys will make some opening remarks, and then we will open the floor to questions. We're going to start now with Steven.

STEVEN LANDRY, VP, SALES & FIELD OPS., DAIMLERCHRYSLER: Thank you, Lori, and good afternoon everyone and happy December 1, Friday. Just a quick housekeeping note. Beginning this month, November sales results, the Chrysler Group will be reporting sales figures as unadjusted each month moving forward. Each month will lead with the unadjusted numbers and the adjusted performance percentages will be included in a chart at the end of the press release distributed to each of you every month.

There is no one industry standard for how automotive OEMs report sales figures or how the media covers these figures, but in an effort for us to communicate more clearly the sales performance of our Chrysler Group and also be consistent within our overall DaimlerChrysler Company, we're going to use the unadjusted figures from now on.

We made the announcement previously on our industry log at the firehouse.biz; we wanted also reinforce it again today. So hopefully, you'll understand.

Now onto the numbers. Overall, the industry sales that we see came in at 1.249 million units in November of '06, up 4% versus the 1.201 [million] units in November of '05. For the Chrysler Group in November, we posted sales of 164,556 units, up 3% compared to November of 2005 when we sold 159,898 units. There were 25 selling days in November and the same 25 days in November of last year and our November sales hit a five-year November sales record, which we're very, very proud of.

Key products for us for the month included the Dodge Ram and Jeep Commander, which both posted positive results, and also the new Chrysler Sebring and Dodge Nitro showing some very strong customer interest as they now begin to arrive in volume at our dealerships across the country.

Our November results show that our aggressive retail sales plan continues to make progress in the marketplace as we further the momentum generated by our October results and we continued to work to close out 2006 on a very positive note.

Now some industry percentages for you. The inventory mix at the end of November was 68% for our 2007 models and 32% for 2006 models -- sorry -- yes, 2006 models. I'll do that again just so you got it. That's 68% for our '07 models and 33% for our '06…