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Ford March 2017 Sales Down 7 Percent


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Highlights:

 

  • Overall Ford Motor Company U.S. March 2017 sales totaled 236,250 vehicles – a 7 percent decline versus a year ago
  • Retail sales declined 2 percent last month, with 157,740 vehicles sold
  • Fleet sales of 78,510 vehicles were down 17 percent, reflecting a strong year-ago comparison, with customer orders front-loaded in early 2016
  • Ford Motor Company average transaction pricing increased $1,800 last month, compared to an industry increase of $190*
  • Ford F-Series sales totaled 81,330 pickups – a 10 percent increase versus a year ago, with overall average transaction pricing up more than $2,500*
  • Ford Super Duty high-series trucks – Lariat, King Ranch and Platinum – represented 56 percent of 2017 Super Duty retail sales last month
  • Ford Escape posts record March retail sales with a 13 percent gain
  • Ford Expedition grew 43 percent, with 5,472 SUVs sold
  • Lincoln retail sales up 5 percent; retail car sales up 11 percent, while SUVs gain 2 percent

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Edited by Anthony
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If you assume a very conservative $5K profit overall on F series and that a $2500 ATP increase means an additional $1000 in profit........

 

(8,000 additional units * $5K) = $40M

 

plus (80K units * $1K) = $80M

 

for a total of $120M in INCREMENTAL profit over March 2016 in one month from 2 vehicles. Total profit is 80K * $5K = $400M.

 

Amazing.

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  • Fleet sales of 78,510 vehicles were down 17 percent, reflecting a strong year-ago comparison, with customer orders front-loaded in early 2016

 

It's good that Ford is cutting back on fleet sales. But that number still represents more than one third of all sales in March 2017. That's the highest of any automaker, much higher than GM (20.7%) or FCA US (23%). Hopefully Ford can get fleet sales to less than one quarter of all sales later this year.

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It's good that Ford is cutting back on fleet sales. But that number still represents more than one third of all sales in March 2017. That's the highest of any automaker, much higher than GM (20.7%) or FCA US (23%). Hopefully Ford can get fleet sales to less than one quarter of all sales later this year.

 

There you go again assuming fleet sales are bad. Fleet dumping is bad, not controlled fleet sales.

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Is that true that only 5 Ford GT's were sold so far? I thought they were all sold out for the year.

 

Yeah, just because they're sold out doesn't mean they're delivered. With limited production, and the approval process potential owners had to go through, the GT buyers already know they're getting one, it's just a matter of waiting for it to be built and delivered.

 

 

It's good that Ford is cutting back on fleet sales. But that number still represents more than one third of all sales in March 2017. That's the highest of any automaker, much higher than GM (20.7%) or FCA US (23%). Hopefully Ford can get fleet sales to less than one quarter of all sales later this year.

 

Fleet =/= bad. Ford's fleet sales represented 33.2% of sales for March, dividing that further shows that 15.7% of Ford's sales were to rental, while 17.4% were to commercial/government, which are not bad sales.

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Fleet =/= bad.

 

I suppose it can be a good deal for fleet customers, because of the huge price concessions they get compared to real retail customers. But it's bad for automakers to rely on those fleet customers as they're not as profitable. In some cases the automaker may not break even with those sales. That's why GM and FCA made a concerted effort to dramatically scale back fleet sales in the past two years, and it seems Ford is now going in the same direction.

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Autonews take on Ford's sales report: FORD: Continued weak car results drag down sales 7.2%

Ford’s car sales were a different story.

The heavily discounted Fiesta was the only nameplate to see a sales increase. Sales of the Fusion, Ford’s third-most popular vehicle last year, dropped 37 percent. Ford in the middle of March began running a program offering dealers up to $6,000 for some of its car models to help clear the 2016 models off lots.

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I suppose it can be a good deal for fleet customers, because of the huge price concessions they get compared to real retail customers. But it's bad for automakers to rely on those fleet customers as they're not as profitable. In some cases the automaker may not break even with those sales. That's why GM and FCA made a concerted effort to dramatically scale back fleet sales in the past two years, and it seems Ford is now going in the same direction.

Didn't Ford do this in the past and then cut back on fleet sales? I wonder what made them ramp up fleet sales again.

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I suppose it can be a good deal for fleet customers, because of the huge price concessions they get compared to real retail customers. But it's bad for automakers to rely on those fleet customers as they're not as profitable. In some cases the automaker may not break even with those sales. That's why GM and FCA made a concerted effort to dramatically scale back fleet sales in the past two years, and it seems Ford is now going in the same direction.

 

Pause for a moment.

 

'it's bad for automakers to rely on those fleet customers as they're not as profitable.'

 

Let's break down the assumptions implicit in this statement.

 

'it's bad' - a conclusion based on the validity of the following arguments.

 

'to rely on those fleet customers' - an assertion which is trivially true of GM, Ford and FCA. If you lopped off 20% of GM's NA sales, they would be in serious trouble, financially. Ford, GM and FCA *all* rely on fleet customers.

 

'as they're not as profitable' - and here you have the problematic statement.

 

What is the profit margin for an order of five hundred Transit vans sold to a single customer, vs. five hundred Transit vans sold individually through a couple hundred dealerships?

 

You don't know this, do you? Neither do I.

 

Therefore, you are not in a position to state, with conviction, that 'fleet sales are not as profitable'.

 

Consider, for instance, the PIU. What is more profitable for Ford? To sell zero PIUs, or to sell 3,192?

 

Should Ford reduce the number of PIUs sold in order to bring their fleet percentage back in line with where you think it should be?

 

---

 

I would also point out that Ford's fleet percentages, overall, have been historically higher than GM's. And Ford has consistently out-earned GM over the same period.

 

Therefore, it is not at all apparent that Ford's fleet strategy is less wise than GM's, unless you wish to deal in fanciful projections regarding margins you don't know, sales volumes you can't guess at, and internal expectations that you are not informed of.

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I suppose it can be a good deal for fleet customers, because of the huge price concessions they get compared to real retail customers. But it's bad for automakers to rely on those fleet customers as they're not as profitable. In some cases the automaker may not break even with those sales. That's why GM and FCA made a concerted effort to dramatically scale back fleet sales in the past two years, and it seems Ford is now going in the same direction.

 

Ford has been scaling back UNPROFITABLE fleet sales for over a decade (from 444K to 260K). Commercial and Government fleet sales are quite profitable for Ford and most other mfrs would kill for that business. It may not be as high margin as retail sales but it's good profit - otherwise why would Ford be trying to grow that part of the business? Rental sales are good advertising but they don't need to be stripper models (or "classics" like GM) or sold at a loss.

 

At least Ford doesn't build vehicles that are only sold to Fleets like GM's classic models.

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Good find, Akirby.

"What happened in the past, automakers had too much inventory and were dumping sales in fleet," said Stephanie Brinley, senior analyst with IHS Markit.

We will see if GM can hold the line this time. Their inventory level is swelling right now. So they can either, increase fleet sale, add new incentive on top of existing ones, or reduce production in Q2. I very much doubt they'll the right thing (the last option). Edited by 03 LS
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