Ford Motor Company has reported net income of $1.7 billion for the third quarter, a rise of 68 percent on the same period a year ago. Pre-tax operating profit totaled $2.1 billion, a $1.1 billion improvement from third quarter 2009.
Total revenue for the quarter declined by $1.3 billion to $29 billion, compared with the third quarter of 2009, which included revenue from Volvo; excluding Volvo’s 2009 sales, revenue increased by $1.7 billion.
This is Ford's sixth consecutive quarterly profit. Chief executive Alan Mulally said that new cars and aggressive cost-cutting had helped to boost profits. "Delivering world class products and aggressively restructuring our business has enabled us to profitably grow even at low industry volumes in key regions,” he said.
Ford North America reported third quarter pre-tax operating profit of $1.6 billion, a $1.3 billion improvement from third quarter 2009. During the quarter, Ford reported a 9 percent sales increase in the US and gained 1.3 percentage points of market share, including strong performances from F-Series, Taurus, Fiesta and Edge.
"The key drivers for improvement in 2011 will be our growing product strength, a gradually strengthening economy and an unrelenting focus on improving the competitiveness of all our operations," Mulally added.
Ford was the only major US automaker that was not subject to a US government bail-out during the financial crisis. The company has now announced new plans to reduce its borrowing, saying that by the end of the year it hopes to have as much cash as debt.
“Our performance through the first nine months has clearly exceeded our initial expectations and is enabling us to make additional significant balance sheet improvements in the fourth quarter,” said Lewis Booth, Ford executive vice president and chief financial officer. “We are now in a period where we are focusing on growing the business profitably around the world following the hard work that has been done by the entire Ford team to fix the fundamentals of the business.”
Looking forward, Ford expects fourth quarter 2010 production to be up 27,000 units compared with year-ago levels. Fourth quarter production will be up 89,000 units compared to third quarter 2010 production, reflecting the normal seasonal increase following summer shutdowns, as well as new product launches and projected industry growth as economic conditions improve.
