Ford predicts 50% global sales increase by 2015, return dividends

Ford’s Alan Mulally has looked into his crystal ball and he sees a bright future for Ford. Really bright.

According to the mid-decade report released earlier today at Ford, the folks at the Blue Oval are predicting global sales to increase by “approximately 50 percent” by 2015, which translates to 8 million annual global sales.

To give a little perspective, in 2010 Ford moved 5.3 million vehicles worldwide – meaning it expects not only to continue growth as an individual company, but it is also anticipating industry-wide growth as the world’s economies continue to stabilize. Ford is not just looking to bump volume, as the automaker says it also expects to raise its global automotive profit margins from 6.1 percent (2010) to 8-9 percent by 2015. North American automotive profit margins are projected to reach an even higher 8-10 percent by mid-decade.

In the past Ford has been plagued by dramatic peaks and valleys in product portfolios, caused largely by allowing successful products to linger in the market far too long. To combat that, Ford announced that it intends to spend roughly $6 billion annually on capital spending by 2015, compared to just $3.9 billion in 2010.

Down with the debt
Ford also reiterated its commitment to quickly and safely paying down its debt, scheduling another $2.3 billion in pay down for the second quarter of this year, with $800 million from its revolving credit line already paid down.

Ford’s debt peaked in 2009 at $33.6 billion, which was down to $16.6 billion by March 31, 2011, with Ford projecting a reduction to $10 billion by 2015.

What about the stockholders?
Ford knows that stockholders are getting anxious about returning to paid dividends, so stockholders should breathe a sigh of relief as Ford committed to returning dividends once the company returns to investment grade in the near future.

“We will continue to focus on maintaining healthy, growing operating margins and creating long-term value,” said Lewis Booth, Ford executive vice president and chief financial officer.

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Fiat gunning to increase market share with Fiat, Lancia

Wednesday, Mar 30th, 2011 @ 10:14 a.m.

With a rash of new Fiat products expected by the end of 2011, Italy’s largest automaker is optimistic that it will reign in its slipping market share in Europe.

“For 2011, we expect a general market improvement, with the exception of the European passenger car market, which will be negatively impacted by declines forecast for Italy and France,” Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne said during Fiat Group’s annual shareholder meeting.

Despite the question marks that continue to surround the European market, Marchionne says that Fiat will gain ground.

“Nevertheless, we expect that our market share will increase as a result of new model releases in the second half of this year.”

Fiat is gearing up to launch a new version of its Panda small car later this year, while Marchionne has high hopes for Lancia, which will soon sell a trio of rebadged Chrysler products in Europe. The Panda, a five-door tall hatchback with available all-wheel-drive, has long been Fiat’s main entry into many European markets, but its current design is about eight years old. Fiat will also rebadge the Dodge Journey as a Fiat Freemont for Europe.

The Italian automaker sells the majority of its products in Europe, although South America and China continue to perform well and Fiat just re-entered the North American market with its 500 minicar.

Lancia, meanwhile, is essentially a non-entity outside of Italy, but Fiat thinks that it will win back buyers across Europe with an all-new Ypsilon small car and three Chrysler products rebadged with the Italian logo.

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Report: March sales could increase 9 percent

Thursday, Mar 24th, 2011 @ 10:13 a.m.

Despite some uneasy market conditions, March could see a near double-digit sales growth. The latest report predicts 1.2 million light vehicles will be sold during the month of March, representing a 9 percent increase over the same month last year.

According to J.D Power and Associates’ monthly report, sales are trending upward in March, likely to result in total light vehicle sales of 1.2 million units. Of those sales, 991,900 are expected to be retail sales, translating to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 10.9 million units.

Additionally, J.D. Power raised its first quarter forecast to 10.7 million vehicles, up from 10.6 million. Total sales for 2011 could hit 13 million units, which would be an increase of 13 percent from 2010.

“With all the dynamic variables kind of interplaying out there right now, we still are seeing strong sales,” said Jeff Schuster, executive director of global forecasting at J.D. Power and Associates.

“We’re also seeing that the likelihood of some inventory shortages is actually causing buyers to maybe push up their purchase decisions to hit the dealerships now while there still is inventory on some of the models that may be in short supply, so March could be getting a boost from that as well.”

However, those same inventory concerns could limit growth during the month of April.

References
1.’J.D. Power: March…’ view

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