Bronco SUVs in manufacturing at Ford’s Michigan Meeting plant, June 14, 2021.
Michael Wayland | CNBC
DETROIT — Ford Motor’s U.S. automobile gross sales confirmed constructive indicators of restoration from an ongoing scarcity of semiconductor chips that is wreaked havoc on the worldwide automotive business this yr.
The Detroit automaker on Wednesday reported gross sales of 175,918 new automobiles in October, down by 4% from a yr in the past however a far narrower loss than in prior months. The gross sales mark Ford’s finest gross sales by quantity since April and the primary time since Could that the corporate hasn’t reported a double-digit month-to-month loss in contrast with 2020.
“By June of this yr, Ford retail gross sales had been up 10.7%. With constrained inventories and report flip charges within the second quarter, we’ve got been working carefully with our sellers gathering retail orders, that are up 16-fold over final yr,” mentioned Andrew Frick, Ford vp of U.S. and Canada gross sales.
In one other constructive word, Ford mentioned automobile inventories, which have been at report lows as a result of chip scarcity, elevated by 7,000 items from a month earlier to 243,000 automobiles and vans.
Ford’s gross sales final month outpaced the business, based on Cox Automotive. The auto analysis firm on Wednesday estimated new U.S. automobile gross sales had been down by about 21% in contrast with October 2020. That is higher than Cox’s preliminary forecast of a 30% decline.
“The market continues to be experiencing very low stock and correspondingly low incentives, however the worst is probably going behind us,” Cox mentioned in a launch.
Ford is amongst a handful of automakers to report new month-to-month automobile gross sales. Others — reminiscent of Basic Motors and Stellantis, previously Fiat Chrysler — report gross sales solely quarterly.
Ford’s October gross sales come per week after the corporate practically doubled Wall Avenue’s earnings expectations for the third quarter and raised its full-year adjusted earnings steering to between $10.5 billion and $11.5 billion, up from between $9 billion and $10 billion.
Nevertheless, Ford is not within the clear relating to its provide of semiconductor chips simply but. CFO John Lawler final week mentioned the corporate expects the chip scarcity to proceed into subsequent yr and doubtlessly, to a far lesser extent, into 2023.
Lawler mentioned Ford expects a ten% enhance in wholesale automobile volumes in 2022 in contrast with this yr, because the semiconductor scarcity continues to impression the enterprise.