Ford F-150 Sales Fall

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Mar 5, 6:55AM EST

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.

Ford F-150 Sales Fall — © jetcityimage / iStock Editorial via Getty Images

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F | F Price Prediction) has good news and bad news for February’s U.S. sales. Its total unit sales rose 10.5% to 174,192. However, sales of its flagship F-series fell 6% to 51,828. It is the second month of decline, and F-series sales are down 9% to 100,531 for the year. Since F-series sales are 30% of Ford’s total, any sign of weakness causes concern.

The F-series has been the best-selling vehicle in America for 42 years. However, it has significant competition from the Chevy Silverado and Ram. Ford offers unusually low financing for the F-150 at a 1.9% APR for 72 months. Some higher-end models do not qualify. However, car financing for most models from most manufacturers across the industry has risen to 5%. Most car companies make money on financing. In a period of high interest rates, Ford’s move is aggressive and not a good sign for its bottom line.

Ford also continues to struggle with sales of its F-150 Lightning, the company’s electric vehicle (EV) flagship. Sales were up but by a minimal amount. In February, Lightning sales were up 93% but only to 2,578. (See the 15 worst-selling electric vehicles last year.)

Ford management has continued to move the company toward what it calls its EV future. As that has stalled, sales of the F-series have become even more critical.

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.