First Quarter Results: Europe Tired, America Wired
The pendulum swings to the U.S.: As expected, Ford turned in higher-than-expected first-quarter profits today, while in Germany, Daimler’s formerly pornographic profits were slashed in half, and Volkswagen stubbornly maintained its outlook despite declining profits.
Ford’s North American unit posted its best quarter in more than a decade on the strength of new models, Reuters says. Revenue in North America shot up by one-fifth during the quarter. Ford reported a pretax profit of $2.1 billion, or 41 cents per share for the quarter, down from about $2.3 billion a year earlier, but better than analysts expected. Ford says it expects to lose $2 billion in Europe this year.
Meanwhile in Germany, Daimler ditched its earnings forecast after its first-quarter profit plunged more than half, brought on by a protracted slump Europe and problems in China, Reuters says.
In Wolfsburg, Volkswagen’s first quarter earnings declined to 2.34 billion euros ($3.05 billion) from 3.16 billion a year ago. VW is bracing for “increasingly stiff competition in a challenging market environment,” Reuters reports. Nevertheless, Volkswagen sees no reason to change its goals to match last year’s record operating profit of 11.5 billion euros and to push global deliveries to new record levels.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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"As expected, Ford turned in higher-than-expected first-quarter profits today" Errr... huh? They were expected to beat expectations? Does. Not. Compute.
I am surprised at the negative comments over Ford's success, I for one like good news. Can you imagine the trollish, angry outpourings if Ford's position was poor or failing. Oh! Well! VW, sensibly, like their cars, is most likely looking at the cyclic nature of the economy and the industry.
Sorry Ford...Toyota proved long ago that you can turn a profit by building mediocre, bland products that are riddled with quality issues. Had you been building vehicles that are even close to a quality product, you would have made far less money. Nice to see you're sacrificing quality for higher profits. Meet the new Ford, same as the old Ford. This is Nasser era incompetence.
Great result, especially considering the situation in Europe. The new core products are selling well so now lets see them do the same for Lincoln (that had to be the elephant in the room on the analyst call).