GENERAL Motors Corp, the largest United States auto maker, reported a second-quarter loss of US$15.5 billion yesterday due to plunging US sales and the declining value of truck leases.

The deficit of US$27.33 a share marks GM's fourth straight quarterly loss and compares with a profit of US$891 million, or US$1.56, a year earlier, Bloomberg News reported. Labor strikes contributed to a US$9.9-billion drop in North American revenue, and sales worldwide tumbled 18 percent to US$38.2 billion.

The results step up pressure on Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner, 55, to show he can revive the auto maker. Wagoner, in his ninth year as CEO, has posted US$69.8 billion in losses since 2004 and is trying to raise as much as US$17 billion in cash while speeding the development of fuel-saving cars to replace the trucks being abandoned by US buyers.

'They really need those external fund-raising measures to get through to 2010,' said Brian Johnson, a Chicago-based Lehman Brothers analyst, in a Bloomberg Television interview. 'We cannot count on an economic rebound.'

A weakened US economy and soaring gasoline prices have dragged US auto sales to 15-year lows. GM's volume dropped 16 percent through June, and analysts expect the auto maker to report a decline in that range when July results are released.

'The second quarter has been one of the fastest-changing quarters I've ever seen' in terms of consumers switching from pickups and sport-utility vehicles to cars and small SUVs, Chief Financial Officer Ray Young said yesterday in Detroit.

GM burned through US$3.6 billion in the quarter and said its supply of cash, marketable securities and other funds available fell to US$21 billion on June 30, from US$23.9 billion at the end of the first quarter.

GM fell 92 cents, or 8.3 percent, to US$10.15 at 8:54am yesterday, before regular New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares plunged 56 percent this year.