Changan Ford first sales drop in China the year, pulled by Focus and Kuga

Gasgoo.com (Shanghai August 12) - Ford China Company released sales in July of 77,100 units, a year-on-year drop of 6%. This is the first time of the year that the company has witnessed sales slide in China.

The accumulative sales of Ford China for the first seven months this year also declined 1% from a year earlier to 620,588 units. The downward trend began at June as the company reported sales of June decreased 3% from last year to 83,506 units. Though the accumulative sales of the first half kept nearly same with that of last year of 543,488 units, the second consecutive sales slide in July contributed to the sales drop in the first seven months of the year.

The three passenger vehicle business sectors of Ford in China, which are passenger vehicle joint-venture Changan Ford, commercial vehicle invested corporation Jiang Ling Motors and Ford imported vehicles, all experienced sales slide of different degree in July.

Changan Ford reported sales of 57,748 units in July, falling 4% compared with the same period of last year, while the accumulative sales reached 452,726 units. Jiang Ling Motors’ sales in July declined to 17,109 units from a year earlier, with year-on-year drop up to 12%; and the company’s sales for the first seven months of the year exceeded 150,000 units to 150,763 units, a year-on-year minimal growth of 1%. Imported Ford vehicles also sold 2,243 units in July, falling 0.03% on a year-on-year basis; and accumulative sales of imported Ford models decreased to 17,099 from a year earlier, with drop degree up to 16.5%.

Ford has changed that the statistic basis of Ford’s sales in China from wholesales quantity to retail numbers in dealerships since the beginning of May. If the sales of Changan Ford are reported on wholesale quantity, then the joint-venture’s sales in July would have decreased more than 20% from a year earlier rather than a 4% year-on-year drop.

The sales slide of its main models contributed fundamentally to sales drop of Ford China. Focus reported sales in July in China of 11,912 units, a sharp decrease of 45% compared to 21,576 units of the same period of last year. Kuga’s sales in China in the same period were 7,881 units, falling 25% far behind 10,450 units of a year earlier.

On the other hand, other models including Mondeo, Escort and Edge gained growth compared with the same period of last year. For example, Mondeo reported sales in July of 9,121 units, a lift of 31.6 percent compared with the 9,054 units in the same period of last year.