Ford’s U.S. profits fell 15.6% in 2020 due to Covid, F-150 availability

U.S. vehicle revenue for Ford Motor fell 15.6% previous yr thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, a drop in professional fleet gross sales and restricted inventories of its F-150 pickup vans.

Gross sales of the well-liked entire-dimensions pickup tumbled by about 33% in the fourth quarter from the exact same time previous year, the automaker documented Wednesday. The lessen revenue were attributed to lingering results from factory shutdowns very last spring because of to Covid-19 as nicely as a changeover in output of the facilities to generate the redesigned F-150.

“We’re optimizing the manufacturing at both plants proper now and it is a issue of obtaining more F-150s out to our vendor plenty,” Erich Merkle, Ford’s head of U.S. revenue evaluation, instructed CNBC. He reported inventories of the F-150 ended up 141,000 units to stop final 12 months, down from 267,000 a 12 months before.

Ford’s 2020 profits decline is envisioned to be in line with the overall U.S. automotive market, which is projected to be off by about 15% to 14.5 million vehicles. That would be the most affordable domestic sales since 2012. It also finishes an unparalleled five-yr streak of gross sales topping 17 million units.

Ford’s truck profits slid 11.3% in 2020, when SUVs ended up off by 9.7% calendar year over year. Revenue of passenger automobiles, which Ford is discontinuing, aside from essential designs this kind of as the Mustang, plummeted 44.7% compared with 2019.

Andrew Frick, Ford vice president of U.S. and Canada revenue, thinks the company is nicely positioned this calendar year from a item standpoint as it transitions absent from passenger cars.

“Fourth quarter represented an inflection level at Ford in our transition from automobiles to a substantially better target on iconic vans and SUVs to superior serve our clients,” he claimed in a launch. “We are well positioned to see the advantages of our concentrated attempts all through 2021.”

Correction: Ford reported F-150 pickup truck sales on Wednesday. An before version misstated the day.