The company maintained its guidance for 2015 and took a bullish outlook for the year with its pretax profit expected to range from $8.5 billion to $9.5 billion. For this year, Ford also expects a higher automotive revenue and operating margin compared to 2014.
Ford announced a fourth-quarter pretax profit of $1.1 billion, a decrease of $197 million compared with a year ago. This was also the 22nd consecutive profitable quarter in terms of after-tax earnings.
Lower vehicle sales, globally, drove revenues down by $1.7 billion to $35.9 billion from the same period in the previous year.
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Ford Credit had a pretax profit of $423 million, up $55 million from last year’s fourth quarter. The improved pretax profit is more than explained by higher volume and favorable market valuation adjustments to derivatives.
In the fourth quarter, Ford’s U.S. market share was 14.3%, down 1.1 percentage points from the previous year. This reflected a lower F-150 share. Ford balanced share with transaction prices and stocks as the company launched the new vehicle.
Bob Shanks, executive vice president and chief financial officer, said:
Our 2014 results were driven by solid profitability in North America, strong results from Ford Credit, and record performance in Asia Pacific. We expect strong growth and improved financial performance in 2015 driven by our investments in new products and capacity.
Earlier in the month, Citigroup weighed in on Ford, downgrading it to a Neutral rating from Buy. Also at the end of the fourth quarter, Deutsche Bank downgraded Ford to a Hold rating from Buy with a price target of $16.
Shares of Ford closed Wednesday down 1.6% at $14.46. In premarket trading Thursday, shares were up 2.5% at $14.83. The stock has a consensus analyst price target of $16.91 and a 52-week trading range of $13.26 to $18.12.
Ford trades at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of roughly 9 and it has a price-to-book ratio of 2.16.
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