Ford Says Full-Size Truck Sales Highest Since December

Ford Motor Company said today that sales of full-size pickup trucks in the U.S. are at their highest pace since December of last year, according to a report from Bloomberg. Partly due to decreases in fuel prices, the rise in full-size pickup sales affects the whole industry, with pickups comprising about 13 percent of all vehicles sold this month.

“Full-size pickups are up just slightly from a year ago, but it’s above the 9- to 10-percent level we saw in April and May when gas got to $4 a gallon,” said Ford sales analyst George Pipas, speaking with reporters at Ford’s headquarters in Dearborn, Mich. “Now it’s back to normal.”

Ford’s U.S. sales are up 11 percent in August, growing faster than the industry-wide average gain of 7.5 percent, according to Bloomberg. For the month of August, Ford sold a total of 67,282 trucks, a fair bit more than the 64,265 trucks sold the same month in 2010. Sales volume was even stronger a month earlier, with a total of 67,473 trucks sold in July. Models in the popular F-150 range made up roughly a quarter of Ford’s total U.S. vehicle deliveries in August. U.S. market share for Ford grew to 16.8 percent this year as of the end of August, up from 16.7 percent the same period last year.

Despite Ford’s current sales momentum with its trucks, along with the industry’s increasing truck sales, Pipas says Ford is not ruling out the possibility of a double-dip recession.

“…It’s not our plan,” said Pipas. “You can’t ignore the economic data coming in. So you have to attach some level of probability to it.”

Though Pipas declined to tell Bloomberg what level of probability Ford gives a double-dip recession, he did say the company’s plan involves slow economic growth over the next several quarters. “The surveys say people are uncertain about the future,” said Pipas. “An automobile is a discretionary purchase; you can wait.”

 

Source: Motor Trend