Ford Motor Company released their October sales earlier today, which reflected the industry decline. George Pipas, Ford sales analyst said inspite of these difficult economic times there is a silver lining in the month of October, and much of it is because of the 2009 F Series Truck.
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| Cut #1: | We were encouraged to see our retail share of the U.S. industry reach its highest level in more than two-years. From a product standpoint F-series contributed importantly to that high level of retail performance." :15 sec. |
| In addition to the F-Series, the Ford Focus, Fusion, Escape and Mercury Mariner small utility vehicles contributed to the balanced retail share. | |
| Cut #2: | "Share is a measure of relative performance and to see our retail share at such a high level, that it is encouraging and we have to continue to just keep working our plan…the truth is that times like these present an opportunity if you can execute your plan, and we've got lots of new products in the coming months to launch and will deliver really outstanding fuel economy and quality on par with the best in the country." :27 sec. |
Pipas explained that Ford's market share, over the past few months, had fallen into the 11 to 12 percent range. However, in the past month, relative to the rest of the industry Ford's market share has surged into the 13-plus percent range, which is why he's encouraged, inspite of these extremely difficult times. | |
| Cut# 3: | "So this is a really good performance for us relative to recent months, relative to a year ago and reaching as far back as to 2006." :09 |
According to Pipas you need to look at the whole economic industry, to understand the numbers. | |
| Cut# 4: | "Ford's retail sale performance was down around 29 percent, 28 percent to be exact on a retail basis, and our best guess is that industry retail sales were down in the mid 30 percent range so that's how you can get an increase in retail "share" when your sales are not down as much as the overall industry.":21 sec. |
Pipas was also encourage by the fact that the company will be introducing nine new products plus two new hybrids in the next nine months which will account for 45 percent of their volume in 2009. |