COLOGNE, August 13, 2010 – Ford was Europe’s No.2 top-selling consumer car brand in July and for the first seven months of 2010 – and maintained market leadership in the UK , Denmark, Hungary, Ireland and Turkey – instead the 4th successive month of sector decline following the ending of most scrappage offers earlier in the year.
“I want to show gratitude our clients for continuing to place their confidence in the Ford brand and our best-ever product range,” said Stephen Odell, Ford of Europe’s recently -appointed chairman and CEO. “These are strengths that we are building upon further as the year progresses, with a raft of latest products, technologies and customer-focused steps coming to market over the next few months.”
“Our policy of not chasing volume and share at the expense of profitability is also paying off. Ford made $429 million profit in the first half of 2010 – almost a $1 billion improvement over the same period last year – so our strategy in Europe is unquestionably successful .”
July was the fourth month of decline in a row in the European new car sector .Ford sales of 97,800 new vehicles in its conventional 19 European markets was 28,100 lesser compared to July 2009. Market share in Ford’s traditional European markets was 8.3 per cent for the month, 0.7 percentage points down on July 2009.
” Massive price drop on new cars – as many of our competitors are continuing to offer – can have the pessimistic outcome of lowering the residual value, of a vehicle and imply a risk to the investment a customer has made when purchasing a new car,” said Ingvar Sviggum, vice president, Marketing, Sales and Service, Ford of Europe. “I believe such unsustainable Unbelievable discounting only damages brand reputation and further weakens the market.”
Fiesta continues to be Europe’s No.two top-selling new car and Ford’s best-selling new car, with 266,500 units sold during the first 7 months of 2010. Since the latest generation Fiesta went on sale in October 2008, more than 911,000 Fiestas have been sold to customers globally , with 793,000 being sold in Europe.
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