Ford Sales Underperform in April

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Ford Sales Underperform in April

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After a first quarter of strong unit sales compared to last year, Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F | F Price Prediction) sales for April fell. While the decline was only 2.4% to 179,588, it operates in a sector where unit sales are carefully followed.

A primary drag on the Ford numbers was the F-150 full-sized pickup. It has been the best-selling vehicle in the United States for 42 years. April sales of the F-150 fell 7.2% to 64,868, which was 36% of the company’s total unit sales for the month. (See how America’s 17 favorite pickup trucks compare.)

Hybrid sales were a bright spot for Ford, rising 59.5% to 17,997. However, in a market in which hybrid sales are considered a solution to slow electric vehicle (EV) sales, their percentage of its April sales was disappointing.

EV sales rose, but the increase was only a tiny number: 129.6% to 8,019. Sales of Ford’s EV flagship, the F-150 Lightning, were up 56.6% to 2,090. At one point, the company said its investment in EVs would be over $30 billion before the end of 2025.

A bright spot in the figures was Lincoln’s 24.2% unit growth to 8,297. However, Ford has to contend with the fact that Mercedes, BMW, and Lexus dwarf the sales of its luxury division.

Taken as a whole, it was a disappointing month for Ford.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
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.

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