Electric Ford F-150 Lightning
Andrew Evers/CNBC
DETROIT – Ford Motor on Tuesday reported a slight increase in new vehicle sales for the second quarter that fell short of auto analysts’ expectations.
The company said sales rose 1.8 percent to 483,688 new cars in the second quarter from a year earlier, but noted that results had improved in June and were up 31.5 percent for the month . Analysts had expected the Detroit automaker’s sales to rise between 3.3 percent and 5.1 percent.
Ford’s sales easily beat the industry in the quarter as total sales were forecast to decline between 19% and 21% from the year-ago period. Automakers are scrambling to restore dealer inventories that have been hit hard by production cuts amid global shortages of semiconductor chips and other key auto components.
Ford shares hit a 52-week low on Tuesday morning. Shares were trading at about $10.75 a share, down about 5%. Shares of the automaker are down nearly 46% in 2022.
Ford was hit hard a year ago by a chip shortage that was largely the result of a fire at one of its suppliers in Japan that forced production cuts into the first half of 2021.
“Amid industry-wide supply constraints, Ford outperformed the industry, driven by strong sales of the F-Series, Explorer and the new Expedition and Navigator SUV models,” Andrew Frick, Ford’s vice president of sales, distribution and trucks, said in a release. .
The company said demand remained strong, with a record 50% of retail sales coming from customer orders in June, rather than purchases from dealer inventory. Automakers have gotten customers to order vehicles, which helps companies better gauge demand and plan accordingly. Ford said retail sales rose 30.3 percent last month from a year earlier.
Notably, Ford’s sales of F-Series pickup trucks improved to 57,673 units in June, their highest monthly total for 2022. Sales include the F-150, including an all-electric version, and larger versions of the the pickup truck.
Sales of the company’s electric F-150 Lightning continue to grow. Ford said it has sold 2,296 of the trucks since they went on sale in late May, including 1,837 in June.
Ford said sales of its electric vehicle — the F-150 Lightning, Mustang Mach-E and E-Transit — jumped 76.6 percent to 4,353 in June from a year earlier. For the first half of the year, EV sales are said to have totaled 22,979 units, up 77% from the same period in 2021.
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