Ford F-150 Sales Continue to Collapse

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jul 1, 12:41PM EDT · Published Jul 1, 10:25AM EDT

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

After repeated assurances that sales of Ford’s flagship F-150 would rise as production of the new generation model came online, the opposite held true in June. Sales of the F-Series collapsed another 8.9% to 55,171.

Ford Motor Co.’s (NYSE: F) total sales for June were higher by 2% to 225,647. So, the F-Series represents 24% of Ford’s overall sales.

For some reason, Ford management believes that comments on anything other than the pickup’s poor sales will mitigate the problem. For instance:

F-Series average transaction prices reached an all-time record in June, with average transaction prices moving above $44,000 per truck — $3,600 higher than last year. The all-new F-150 is turning twice as fast on dealer lots than the industry average for half-ton pickups, as Ford continues building dealer stocks.

Ford’s argument for a surge in F-150 sales has been simple. The new version is partially made with aluminum, which lightens weight and adds to fuel efficiency.

Ford management has indicated supply constraint will no longer by an issue. According to MarketWatch, on June 27:

The test of F-150 sales will begin in June and stretch through the summer. Ford Chief Financial Officer Bob Shanks recently said that the ramp up of F-150 production was complete.

Now that Ford can produce what it believes will meet market demand, it has to prove that the demand will be sufficient to increase sales sharply. The bad news would be if F-150 sales continued to fall, or if Ford has to discount prices to push sales higher.

Higher prices are not nearly as good a gauge of success as unit sales. F-150 sales continue to race in the wrong direction.

Editor’s note: Ford called and made the case that unit sales are only one measurement, and that price per transaction and days-to-turn should be taken into account.

ALSO READ: Ford Says It Wants to Change the Way the World Moves

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.