The end of scrappage schemes and continuing weakness in consumer confidence resulted in May being the second consecutive month of decline in the European new car industry.
Ford sales reflected the decrease in the industry, with sales of 105,500 units being 17,100 lower than in the previous year. Market share at 8.2 percent for the month was 0.7 percentage points down on May 2009.
"Our primary focus at Ford is to improve our profitability – and we successfully achieved this in the first quarter of the year" said Ingvar Sviggum, vice president of marketing, sales and service at Ford of Europe. "We've long been prepared for the slowdown in the market and are not surprised that many of our competitors continue to react with the tactic of heavy discounting, which we believe is ultimately unsustainable and damages the brand."
"In the face of such difficult market conditions, we have put in place a simple, consistent and effective plan: we will grow our volume and share where it makes good business sense to do so, such as in Turkey; we will reduce in a controlled way our share and volume in the areas of our business that are less profitable; we will improve our margins and protect the re-sale value of our products; and we will continue to provide our customers with the best possible new vehicles and technologies. This is how we will continue to improve our profitability and strengthen the Ford brand," said Sviggum.
Ford remained Europe's No. 2 best-selling passenger car brand year-to-date, and was the best-selling brand for May and in the first five months of 2010 in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Hungary, Ireland and Turkey, respectively.
Fiesta continues to be Ford of Europe's top-selling new car, 204,000 units sold during the first five months of 2010. Since the latest generation of the model entered the market in October 2008, 833,000 Fiestas have been purchased by customers around the world, 730,000 of whom have been in Europe. Production of the Fiesta also recently started in Mexico for the North American market.
