How Did Ford Motor Company Outsell General Motors In May 2017?
With its Ford and Lincoln brands, the Ford Motor Company reported 240,250 U.S. sales in May 2017, a 2-percent year-over-year improvement.
General Motors, which has outsold Ford Motor Company in 14 consecutive months, sold 237,364 new vehicles in May 2017, a 1-percent year-over-year drop.
In May 2017, for the first time since March of last year, the Ford Motor Company outsold General Motors.
The Mark Fields era at Ford, a period in which the company’s value crumbled, is over. But if Fields took the blame for what ailed Ford, doesn’t he get the credit for what went right? Besides a handsome severance package, the Mark Fields era ended with Ford Motor Company out in front of General Motors.
But how did Ford make it happen? With pickups and fleets.
PICKUP
In other words, pickups are hot. GM’s pickups, increasingly de-incentivized, are not.
Meanwhile at Ford, F-Series sales jumped 13 percent last month, continuing a trend of improvement from the earlier part of the year that suggests Ford will sell nearly 900,000 pickup trucks this year — a 12 or 13-year high for the F-Series range.
Though demanding more from paying customers — Ford says average F-Series transaction prices rose $3,300 last month — May’s 76,027-unit F-Series performance was still best May for the truck lineup since 2004. Ford’s share of the full-size truck market jumped more than a point to 39 percent.
Ford wasn’t the only automaker to pick up pickup sales at GM’s expense. May was the third consecutive month in which the Ram P/U line, up 16 percent last month, outsold the Chevrolet Silverado.
Ford division SUVs/crossovers, meanwhile, reported a collective 3-percent gain in May. Those five utility vehicles outsold Ford’s own car division by more than 21,000 units.
Regardless of the nameplate — SUV, crossover, and car or typically fleet-friendly truck or van — Ford required a significant boost in fleet volume in order to outsell General Motors and earn 16 percent of the market in May. 34 percent of Ford Motor Company May 2017 sales were fleet-derived.
Retail sales at Ford Motor Company slid 1 percent. Retail sales at General Motors — 21 percent stronger than Ford’s retail volume — ticked up slightly.
Of course, not all fleet is bad. Indeed, a good fleet sale is much better than a bad retail sale. And so long as Ford is dominating core fleet segments with commercial vans and pickup trucks, we’ll always see large fleet volume from the automaker.
Ford says 16 percent of the company’s total May volume was produced by sales to daily rental companies, another 12 percent went to commercial fleets, and 6 percent of May’s volume were generated by sales to government fleets.
That boost certainly helped Ford decrease its inventory glut to much more tolerable levels. At the end of April, Ford had 83 days’ supply, including vehicles in transit. That was down to 72 days by the end of May, less supply than Ford had at this stage of 2016 when the market was climbing. And so it should be.
According to ALG, Ford Motor Company and General Motors average transaction prices were essentially on par with another. Incentives at Ford Motor Company rose 14 percent year-over-year to $4,090, ALG says, though that was down marginally from April levels. At General Motors, incentives grew 5 percent to $4,255 compared with May of last year and were up narrowly compared with April.
Timothy Cain is a contributing analyst at The Truth About Cars and Autofocus.ca and the founder and former editor of GoodCarBadCar.net. Follow on Twitter @timcaincars.
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The era of cut-and-run Bara the only place for GM to go is downward. On the other hand, Fields has built up Ford in both Europe the US. The mustang is now the bestselling American car in Europe. Imagine the Germans on waiting lists to buy American mustangs! Bara strategy was to instead to leave Europe, giving the impression GM could not compete there. It is strange that Bara was been awarded for her incompetence, while Fields was fired just two days before it was announced Ford had surpassed GM in domestic market share. It has been estimated that GM lost about 3% market share by cancelling, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Hummer, and Saturn. With those divisions still intact GM would have a market share of around 19-20% today. Bara states she wants GM to concentrate of profitability instead of chasing market share. It has done little good, since GM stock price is still trash (33 USD). You will also be surprised how little interest GM stock holders have in the actual quality of GM cars. Fast Fact. The cancelled divisions of old GM which include, Oldsmobile, Saturn, Pontiac, and Hummer could create a single division that would outsell all of Mitsubishi, Lincoln, and Mazda combined! We are probably talking about a combined sales volume of 250,000+ cars. Bara will be fired once GM's stock drops to around 26 USD. As I said before with GM's current strategy the only place to go is downward. Ford will win a few more months in the market share race and take over permanently in the early 2020s.
That picture above, new GM pickups being delivered on an ancient Volvo/White truck - that machine myst be 20 years old at the least. How long do US commercial trucks do service? In Europe, it's rare to see 20 yo trucks do that kind of duty, especially if hired for a vehicle manufacturer.