Ford Motor Co. posts $100M profit
April 26, 2008 by George Skentzos
Ford Motor Co. has today announced its first quarter earnings, posting net income of $100 million on total revenue of $43.5 billion, this is compared to a net loss of $282 million on revenue of $43.0 billion during the same period a year ago.
The news has seen Ford stock soar, closing the day up 88 cents, or 11.7 percent, to $8.40 a share.
This profit comes despite the company posting a pre-tax loss of $45 million in North America, compared with a loss of $613 million a year ago.
Overseas results have improved dramatically, amounting to a pre-tax profit of $739 million in Europe on revenue of $10.2 billion – these results do not include Jaguar and Land Rover which Ford has since sold to Tata Motors Ltd.
South America has also closed the first quarter with a pre-tax profit of $257 million, up from $113 million a year ago.
“In the past several years, we have substantially restructured these businesses. We believe this is an indication that our efforts to leverage Ford’s global assets across the world will bear fruit. Going forward, we remain committed to our key business objectives, including our goal of reaching North America and overall Automotive profitability in 2009 despite the challenging economic conditions.” Ford CEO Alan Mulally.
Unfortunately for Ford, not all its overseas interests are booming, with Volvo posting a pre-tax loss of $151 million, compared with a profit of $94 million a year ago.
Ford said Volvo was hurt by lower sales and changes in currency exchange rates, partially offset by cost reductions.
Ford, which posted losses of $2.7 billion in 2007 and $12.6 billion in 2006, expects the rest of 2008 to be challenging, cutting its full-year North American outlook for sales, but said it remains committed to its goal of returning North America and its whole auto business to profitability in 2009.
Print it: 
The fact that the Euro Sourced small cars like the Fiesta Focus and Golf are easily outselling the Barina and Viva shows that Ozzies are willing to pay a prepmium if they can see that the build quality is better the features are greater etc because in the end they want value for money…
Which could explain why the once all mighty corolla isn;t as popular as it was or Toyota [fans[ would like to believe
Its lead/dominance is gradually becoming less and less every month
Ah but how many Corollas do you see compared to Barinas, Vivas. Probably more. I’m sure one of the blinkered Toyota nurds will no doubt provide the skewed sales figures.
Wheelnut who exactly are you kidding? As you would expect, the new Corolla has experienced an upturn in sales… its not going to get toppled in the distant future, because there isnt any decent competition which can match Toyota. Same can be said about many categories which Toyota now top or at close to topping
Hey TP i’m a Euro bod. The Corolla is no-where near the top of the here. So is it really that good otr is it more the case as I stated average people don;t care what they look like in a car.
The market is changing and small economical cars are taking over with petrol prices squeezing the bigger cars. This is clear from my research.
While things have been slim one must wonder about the logic applied to why Ford stopped making a RHD version of the Explorer which was getting a growing audience in Australia, UK & Japan, biting into sales of Toyota as well as Nissan.
It was esentially a knee jerk reaction & not to mention a bad one. The longer a model remains out of a certain market the harder it is to ever re-establish itself within that market again.
This is something that definitely should be rectified post haste, it is bad management to say the least to have a situation where you have potential substancial market for your product but do not make it available.
Open your eyes people & listen to your potential customers or they will go elsewhere & Ford will be left with their pants around their ankles.
Cheers
Grae