* Italy new car sales down 32.64 pct
* Japan new car sales, excl minivehicles, down 28 pct
* S.Korea sales down 35 pct, Spain 41 pct, France 8 pct * Nippon Steel may cut output as Voestalpine trims outlook
(Adds Italy new car sales figures)
By Jason Webb and Marcel Michelson
MADRID/PARIS, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Sales of new cars, for many households the most expensive outlay after property, dropped further in Asia and Europe in January as the savage downturn in the industry left its mark on steelmakers on both continents.
With consumers putting off big-ticket buys, new car sales fell by a fifth in Japan last month and South Korea's automakers moved a third fewer cars.
Sales also tumbled 41.6 percent in Spain, 32.64 percent in Italy and 8 percent in France.
Consumers prefer to save their money because they fear for their jobs and face tight credit markets.
Many global carmakers have already cut production, idling plants, laying off workers and delaying spending to cope with weakening markets. Several have sought state aid to survive.
As the crisis spreads to suppliers, Nippon Steel Corp said it may cut its output further but would wait to see the output plans of leading Japanese automakers for the April-June quarter before making any changes.
Austrian steelmaker Voestalpine, which generated 25 percent of its 2007-08 revenue from the auto sector, cut its 2008-09 forecast amid a "massive decline" in demand and said it could not give an outlook for the following year.
The decline in Spanish car sales left manufacturers there desperately in need of aid similar to that announced in other European countries, industry association ANFAC said on Monday.
France's 7.9 percent January decline came after a 15.8 percent drop in December, auto industry body CCFA said. Sales of French brands dropped 14.8 percent and took their combined market share to 50 percent.
In Italy, where the government has yet to come up with incentives to encourage drivers to buy cars, sales tumbled 32.64 percent for the month.
Fiat saw sales for its three main brands drop 31.3 percent, leaving it with a 32.06 percent share of its home market.
U.S. data are also due later.
Spain's rate of sales decline slowed from December's 49.9 percent drop, but in absolute terms, January's sales were considerably worse than those of the preceding month as Spain's recession mauled spending by heavily indebted consumers.
ANFAC said government measures announced so far, including loans for people who want to buy new cars to replace older, more heavily polluting models, were insufficient.
"The industry urgently needs measures to boost demand ... In countries such as the United Kingdom and Sweden, which have lower production than Spain, they have taken measures to support the industry in the form of (loan) guarantees," ANFAC said.
Spain's economy tipped into recession in the second half of 2008 and unemployment has almost doubled to nearly 14 percent.
Automakers have announced a wave of job cuts in Spain, where marques with factories include General Motors, Ford, Renault, Nissan, PSA Peugeot Citroen and Volkswagen.
U.S. SALES SEEN DOWN
The Dow Jones Stoxx auto index was down 1.52 percent, after a fall of some 10 percent this year and a 45 percent slide in 2008.
In an interview, Honda's chief financial officer Yoichi Hojo said January sales in the United States, the world's biggest car market, fell by a similar margin to a 35 percent drop in December, and it would take several months to bring down high inventory levels.
Japan's No. 2 automaker plans to operate its factories in North America, Japan and Asia, excluding China, at just 60 percent of capacity in January-March. ($1=0.7783 euro) (Additional reporting by Chang-Ran Kim, Nobuhiro Kubo, Yuko Inoue in TOKYO, Cheon Jong-woo and Shin Jieun in SEOUL, Janaki Krishnan in MUMBAI and Gilles Castonguay in MILAN;) (Editing by John Stonestreet and Simon Jessop)