Ford Car Talk

As sales reports come in this August, the auto industry is expected to report not more than 10 million sold units. Ford recently announced that its total sales are up by 2% and year-on-year jumped by as much as 9%. The improvement in the performance is partly attributed to the government’s Cash for Clunkers program.

The numbers of Ford looks solid and a lot of experts want to be as optimistic as possible to see a turnaround for the whole of the auto industry.

The 9% increase in retail sales from August 2008 to this year marks the first recovery of the figures since November 2007. Aside from citing the CARS, Ford also looks to the new and more fuel efficient members of their fleet.

What gives perspective to the jump up in sales figures is the projected 10 million units rolling out of dealerships. The volume prediction is about a 40% drop from the 2008 figures. The overall figure is seen to have risen 2% from the November 2007 sales reports.

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Ford Motor Co. struggles in the fourth quarter of 2008 without any help from the federal government. The company burned through funds amounting to $5.5 billion in the last stretch of the previous year.

The car manufacturer finished 2008 with a $13.4 billion cash reserves. Ford will be drawing down available credit lines of $10.1 billion to address concerns on the rocky global economy.

Ford files a net loss amounting to $5.9 billion for the 4th quarter of 2008 compared to a year over year $2.5 billion. The car manufacturer closes 2008 as its third year of not earning any profits. Pretax operation loss was recorded on their books at $3.7 billion compared to $620 million in 2007.

The whole of the auto industry faced an unusual major slowdown in markets all over the globe recorded during the last three months.

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Last Tuesday, automobile giant Ford announced that the company had sold 13% of their Mazda shares. Because of the said sale, the company is now richer by $540 million.

The sale of Ford Mazda stocks also meant an important landmark in the history of the automobile industry—Ford is letting Mazda out of its reigns after twelve years of full control. Ford took over the said Japanese brand since 1979 but the company wasn’t able to immediately establish full control.

With the diminished power that Ford has now over Mazda, CEO Hisazaku Imaki immediately passed Mazda’s reigns to purchasing head Takashi Yamanouchi. The new successor was reported to have been with Mazda for over forty years.

Mazda’s spokeswoman, Yukari Hara, said that the sell off entails that Mazda has once again been a Japanese company. A report said that the Ford shares were actually bought by Mazda’s Japanese stockholders.

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