Ford headquarters. Photo courtesy of Ford.
Ford (F +3.62%) has been lighting the sales charts on fire this year and doesn't look to slow down anytime soon. It's set monthly records of sales throughout the year on its Fusion and Escape models while the F-Series has continued to be America's best-selling truck and vehicle. Ford just released its June sales figures, which were up 13% compared to last year, and it continues the positive trend investors were hoping for.
Quick hits
- As a whole, Ford was up 13% compared to a year ago, which was its best June since 2006.
- Its car and utilities sales are up 12% and 8%, respectively.
- Its truck sales are up 20%, with F-Series posting its best June since 2005.
- Lincoln's MKZ recorded its best June sales month ever and best quarterly sales ever.
Digging deeper
Under the Ford brand only, which accounts for the vast majority of sales, cars were up 13.3% compared to last year and offered some surprises. The Fiesta, which typically sells much better overseas, increased a staggering 104% compared to last year.
Ford's Fusion sales came in slightly under last year's sales at 24,313 (down 0.5%), but are still up a very healthy 17.8% for year-to-date sales. One of the reasons for this flat growth in sales is due to the limited production capacity. Recently it had been reported that the plant producing the Fusion is running at 114% capacity and Ford still can't keep enough inventory on the dealer lots. Until extra capacity comes on line, we may see flat sales growth for the Fusion.
Ford's Escape model continues to impress consumers and is being driven off the lots in a hurry. Its sales were only up 0.7% over last year, but still an impressive 28,694 Escapes were sold, its best June ever; it was also Ford's second-best-selling vehicle last month. Escape sales have been impressive all year and are still up a very healthy 23.2% in year-to-date figures.
The biggest winner for Ford and its investors is the ever-popular F-Series. It continues to blow up the sales charts with impressive gains, up 23.6% over last year's June sales and still up 22% in year-to-date sales. This is a critical number to finish off the last month of the quarter, and will definitely boost top-line revenues as well as bottom-line profits when Ford reports its quarterly earnings later this month. It sold over 68,000 F-Series trucks: To put that number in perspective, Ford considers anything above 50,000 a phenomenal month – making this entire year a gold mine for Ford and its investors.
Information from Ford monthly press releases.
It gets even better. The chart below emphasizes why the F-Series will be even more profitable this year as transaction prices outpace the industry.
Information from Automotive News DataCenter.
Bottom line
As you can see, with transaction prices rising faster than the rest of the industry, the F-Series will be very profitable. There is a caveat, though: TrueCar reports that the F-Series had the largest total incentives for the month of June. This shouldn't raise any alarms, for this is a typical strategy considering that rival General Motors (GM +4.43%) is currently releasing its redesigned 2014 Chevy Silverado.
All in all, this caps off another excellent and profitable month for Ford and leaves investors with a huge expectation for a great quarterly report coming up later this month. It also caps off a great six months for an American icon that has had a business turnaround that will be discussed in future business classes across the nation.
