NEW YORK, Sept 26 (Reuters) - North American shipments of replacement automotive lead-acid batteries totaled 6,648,906 units in April, down 12.82 percent from March and 7.26 percent from April 2002, Battery Council International (BCI) said.
In a report covering January to April 2003, BCI said replacement car battery shipments reached 7,626,810 units in March, 6,466,209 in February and 5,973,981 in January.
The cumulative total for the first four months of this year was 26,715,906 units, a rise of 3.24 percent from the same period in 2002, BCI said.
Total shipments of original equipment automotive batteries in April fell 8.27 percent from the previous month to 1,708,109 units, a decline of 5.44 percent compared with April 2002.
Original equipment battery shipments hit 1,862,065 units in March, 1,576,658 in February and 1,654,609 in January.
Cumulative shipments from January to April 2003 totaled 6,801,441 units, off 1.11 percent from the year-earlier period.
Replacement batteries are shipped to parts dealers and wholesalers. Original equipment batteries are usually shipped directly to auto manufacturers.