Ford bosses upbeat on 2010 sales prospects

FORD expects to take a larger share of the US car market in March, the company's US sales chief said yesterday.

The US car industry overall is expected to have a stronger month than many expected at the end of February, but Ford's results should outpace the industry, Ken Czubay said in an interview.

"We are having a pretty good month in March and we are finding the industry is having a good month, but we ought to outpace the industry again," he said.

Czubay said the seasonally adjusted annualised sales rate for the industry this month will be "surprisingly good" compared with what might have been expected.

In early March, Ford said consumer confidence seemed to have reached a plateau.

Annualised US car sales ran at a 10.8 million vehicles in January and at about 10.4 million in February. Most industry forecasters expect sales of about 11.5 million vehicles in 2010.

Yesterday, car industry tracking service Edmunds said US sales in March were running at an annualised rate of 12.4 million vehicles.

Ford has forecast US car industry sales in the 11.5-12.5 million range for the year, including medium and heavy duty trucks.

Czubay said March results were being driven by increased marketing across the industry, the start of the spring selling season and, he hoped, the beginning of an increase in business due to an economic recovery.

"I think we have all been a little disappointed that the recovery hasn't taken hold of our business a little bit more strongly – January and February for example – so I am hoping the recovery is starting to take hold so we can raise the base water level of business," Czubay said.

If March comes out as expected, Ford will have gained US market share in 17 of the past 18 months. Last year, Ford increased its US market share for the first time since 1995.

Ford's US market share rose more than one full percentage point in 2009 to 15.5 per cent, not including the Volvo car unit it plans to sell to China's Geely.

Ford posted losses of $30 billion from 2006 through to 2008 as it worked on a broad restructuring. It posted a profit last year and expects a profit in 2010.