How Ford Made Record Profits Despite Low F-150 Sales - Motley Fool
reported second-quarter earnings on Tuesday, its lackluster U. S. sales numbers had raised concerns about the company's second-quarter profits. Warnings from Ford executives to expect the bulk of the company's profits to happen in the second half of the year didn't help to boost expectations any. In an interview on Tuesday morning, I asked Ford CFO Bob Shanks if it was a matter of strong SUV sales offsetting the weakness in the F-Series and Ford's high-volume car models. Retail sales of Ford's Explorer rose almost 8% in the second quarter, and the all-new Edge has been selling very quickly. Shanks said that on a wholesale basis, looking at Ford's shipments to its dealers during the quarter, Ford lost about 25,000 F-150s versus last year because of the ramp-up to full production. The two Ford factories that make the F-150 both required significant downtime to convert to making the all-new truck. Short supplies of the new 2015 F-150 led to a 6. 5% drop in Ford's full-size pickup sales in the second quarter. But very strong pricing on the trucks Ford did sell helped to boost profits anyway. Shanks noted that Ford also lost (again, on a wholesale basis) about 15,000 units of the Explorer. Source: www.fool.com
