Ford Sees Small Sales Slide in April

Ford truck sales held steady in April, offsetting a continuing downward spiral in car volume that precipitated an overall 3.7% slide on a daily sales basis and a 7.3% drop in light-vehicle volume to 207,962.

Light trucks posted a small 2% gain while the Dearborn automaker’s car volume swooned 18.2% for the month, WardsAuto data shows. April had 26 selling days compared with 27 last year.

Year-to-date, total car sales were down 22.1% at 199,052 units while light trucks were up 2.2% at 608,800. Ford adds Super Duty volume of about 5,000 units to its light-duty pickup total to push overall F-Series sales past the 70,000 mark for the month, a 0.2% decline.

Despite the down month, Mark LaNeve, vice president-U.S. Marketing, Sales and Service, isn’t backing off strong sales projections for the year in a market expected to top 17 million units.

“We have to let the year play out,” LaNeve says. “All the underlying fundamentals…are still very positive. In a plateauing industry, you’ll have some months up and some months down. We have some big sales months ahead.”

SUVs saw strong gains in April, with the Expedition up 17.5%, Edge climbing 10.8% and Escape growing 9.8%. Sales of the premium Lincoln Navigator SUV plummeted 31%, however. All-new models replace both the Expedition and Navigator later this year.

The car end of the business hurt the automaker again in April, as it posted its fourth double-digit DSR decline (-18.2%) in as many months. Ford’s last increase in car sales – 18.8% – came in February 2016.

Cars sales were hammered by declines for the Mustang (-34.2%), Fiesta (-22.5%), Taurus (-18.7%), Fusion (-16.4%) and Focus (-14.3%). A bright spot among car sales was the Lincoln Continental with 1,003 deliveries in April, pushing year-to-date volume to 4,212 units for the all-new flagship sedan.

Despite falling sales in the U.S., Ford notes the Mustang now is the top-selling sports car in the world, with exports to 140 countries. Sales outside the U.S. were up 6% in 2016 compared with the previous year, Ford reports.

Ford-brand sales were off 4% for the month, while Lincoln was up 2.9%. For the year, Lincoln was ahead 6% in total volume while sales of Ford-branded vehicles were off 5.6%. Lincoln has posted 15 consecutive monthly gains, LaNeve says.

Ford’s average transaction prices increased $1,900 per vehicle compared with an industrywide increase of $210, LaNeve says, mostly powered by purchases of well-equipped SUVs and Super Duty trucks.

The automaker ended the month with 687,970 vehicles in inventory, equal to an 83-day supply, compared with 701,801 and an 80-day supply at the end of March. The April total included 167,779 cars (87 days’ supply), 196,668 utilities (70) and 323,523 trucks (92).

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