What happened
After eking out only a tiny gain yesterday, shares of Ford Motor Company (F 0.37%) fell sharply on Tuesday, down 4.4% as of 1 p.m. ET.
The reason: Car sales -- and more specifically, truck sales.
Image source: Ford Motor Co.
So what
Ford reported vehicle sales for the U.S. market in March yesterday, you see, and the news was not good. Total sales for the month fell 25.6% year over year to 159,328, with retail sales (i.e., not fleet) falling even harder -- down 30.1%.
Sales were especially hard hit in Ford's profit center of big, high-margin pickup trucks where total sales tanked 34.4% and retail sales were down 39%. SUV sales were less hard hit (down 9.4% and 16.2%, respectively). Car sales -- fortunately now just a niche business for Ford -- plunged 67%.
The only bright spot in the month was sales of electric vehicles, which climbed 16.9% (sales to retain customers, up 9.4%).
Now what
That's the bad news. Now here's the good:
Although the numbers look pretty abysmal year over year, Ford pointed out that sales actually climbed sequentially from February, with retail sales up 23.2% and SUV sales rising 39.2%, as the company enjoyed some "improvements in production."
Also notable is that, while Ford said "the global semiconductor chip shortage" remains in full effect, impeding production, demand is no problem at all. Ford noted that retail orders in the month literally quadrupled from one year ago, to 88,000, and orders for new F-series pickups hit a new record with 50,000 retail orders recorded in March.
Demand is so good for new products, in fact, that Ford needed an unusual verb to describe it, boasting that "Ford's newest vehicles, Bronco, Bronco Sport, Mustang Mach-E and Maverick, together are conquesting from competitive vehicles at a rate of 62 percent in March" [emphasis added].
And for anyone who's been wondering, sales of the new Maverick hybrid electric pickup are booming, with 8,695 sold in March -- even more than the revived Ford Ranger.
