Ford sees more U.S. market share gains in March

Ford Motor Co expects to take a larger share of the U.S. market in March, as it continues to attract non-Ford owners to its brands, Ford's U.S. sales chief said on Thursday.

The U.S. auto industry overall is expected to have a stronger month in March than many expected at the end of February, but Ford's results should outpace the industry, Ken Czubay said in an interview.

"We are having a pretty good month in March and we are finding the industry is having a good month, but we ought to outpace the industry again," he said.

Czubay said the seasonally adjusted annualized sales rate for the industry in March will be "surprisingly good" compared with what might have been expected at the end of February.

In early March, Ford said consumer confidence seemed to have reached a plateau.

Annualized U.S. auto sales ran at a 10.8 million vehicles in January and at about 10.4 million in February. Most industry forecasters expect sales of about 11.5 million vehicles in 2010.

On Thursday, auto industry tracking service Edmunds said U.S. sales in March were running at an annualized rate of 12.4 million vehicles.

Ford has forecast U.S. auto industry sales in the 11.5 million to 12.5 million range for the year, including medium and heavy duty trucks.

Czubay said March results were being driven by increased marketing across the industry, the start of the spring selling season and, he hoped, the beginning of an increase in business due to an economic recovery.

"I think we have all been a little disappointed that the recovery hasn't taken hold of our business a little bit more strongly -- January and February for example -- so I am hoping the recovery is starting to take hold so we can raise the base water level of business," Czubay said.

If March comes out as expected, Ford will have gained U.S. market share in 17 of the last 18 months. Last year, Ford increased its U.S. market share for the first time since 1995.

Ford's U.S. market share rose more than 1 full percentage point in 2009 to 15.5 percent from the prior year not including the Volvo car unit it plans to sell to China's Geely.