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Ford sales up 33% in December; biggest boost since 2001
Posted by: Timothy Tibbetts on: 01/05/2010 12:32 PM in Automotive [ Print ]
DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co. posted a 33 percent rise in December sales to assure its first annual gain in U.S. market share in more than a decade.
Sales of 183,701 Ford, Lincoln, Mercury and Volvo light vehicles last month brought the automaker's decline for the year down to 16 percent in a market that through November was down 24 percent.
The advance will end a slide that began after 1998, when Ford controlled 25.7 percent of the U.S. market. Through November last year, Ford held 15.9 percent after falling to 15.1percent in 2008.
December's 33 percent gain was the biggest on a percentage basis for Ford since a 39.8 percent advance in October 2001, when the industry piled on incentives after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The results from Ford, the first automaker to report year-end sales, provide another sign that the industry is on the mend. A year ago, as industry sales plunged to 27-year lows, Ford posted a 34 percent decline in December volume.
Before the release of today's results, analysts projected that U.S. auto sales would end the year on a slight upswing.
The deepest U.S. economic downturn since the Great Depression hammered auto sales through most of 2009 -- particularly in the first six months, when the seasonally adjusted annual sales rate failed to top 10 million.
U.S. auto sales on average are expected to come in at an 11 million-unit seasonally adjusted annual rate in December, according to a survey of 21 analysts compiled by Reuters. Their annualized outlooks ranged from 10.4 million to 11.4 million vehicles.
A Bloomberg News poll of eight analysts pegged the SAAR at 11.1 million.
Demand in that range would mark the second month this year -- aside from July and August, when sales were helped by the cash-for-clunkers program -- that the SAAR topped 11 million. The other was11.24 million in October.
The results suggest a gradual recovery in U.S. auto sales in 2010, an outlook favored by most in the industry. But that still leaves sales rates well below figures not imagined by even the most pessimistic of analysts two years ago.
Through 2008, industry sales this decade had averaged 16.4 million.
One question before today's results: Will sales rally enough in December to make 2009 the worst year for U.S. light-vehicle sales since 1982? Or will they fall short, making 2009 the worst year for U.S. auto sales since 1970?
TrueCar analyst Jesse Toprak expects 2009's U.S. sales to be the worst since 1970 -- or since 1950, using a population-adjusted basis. Sales to corporate fleets or car rental companies remain a wild card and could push the total higher, he said.
"I think what we are going to see in 2010, in a nutshell, is steady and slow recovery," Toprak said. "The fundamentals that fuel new-car sales are improving, but there is still a lot of skepticism from consumers."
Ford sales up 33% in December; biggest boost since 2001
Sales of 183,701 Ford, Lincoln, Mercury and Volvo light vehicles last month brought the automaker's decline for the year down to 16 percent in a market that through November was down 24 percent.
The advance will end a slide that began after 1998, when Ford controlled 25.7 percent of the U.S. market. Through November last year, Ford held 15.9 percent after falling to 15.1percent in 2008.
December's 33 percent gain was the biggest on a percentage basis for Ford since a 39.8 percent advance in October 2001, when the industry piled on incentives after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The results from Ford, the first automaker to report year-end sales, provide another sign that the industry is on the mend. A year ago, as industry sales plunged to 27-year lows, Ford posted a 34 percent decline in December volume.
Before the release of today's results, analysts projected that U.S. auto sales would end the year on a slight upswing.
The deepest U.S. economic downturn since the Great Depression hammered auto sales through most of 2009 -- particularly in the first six months, when the seasonally adjusted annual sales rate failed to top 10 million.
U.S. auto sales on average are expected to come in at an 11 million-unit seasonally adjusted annual rate in December, according to a survey of 21 analysts compiled by Reuters. Their annualized outlooks ranged from 10.4 million to 11.4 million vehicles.
A Bloomberg News poll of eight analysts pegged the SAAR at 11.1 million.
Demand in that range would mark the second month this year -- aside from July and August, when sales were helped by the cash-for-clunkers program -- that the SAAR topped 11 million. The other was11.24 million in October.
The results suggest a gradual recovery in U.S. auto sales in 2010, an outlook favored by most in the industry. But that still leaves sales rates well below figures not imagined by even the most pessimistic of analysts two years ago.
Through 2008, industry sales this decade had averaged 16.4 million.
One question before today's results: Will sales rally enough in December to make 2009 the worst year for U.S. light-vehicle sales since 1982? Or will they fall short, making 2009 the worst year for U.S. auto sales since 1970?
TrueCar analyst Jesse Toprak expects 2009's U.S. sales to be the worst since 1970 -- or since 1950, using a population-adjusted basis. Sales to corporate fleets or car rental companies remain a wild card and could push the total higher, he said.
"I think what we are going to see in 2010, in a nutshell, is steady and slow recovery," Toprak said. "The fundamentals that fuel new-car sales are improving, but there is still a lot of skepticism from consumers."
Ford sales up 33% in December; biggest boost since 2001