Ford Motor Company’s namesake brand will top two million vehicles in the United States sales this year and its Focus compact car was the top-selling model line worldwide through September, the auto maker has said.
Bloomberg reported on Monday that Ford would be the only auto brand to exceed the two million sales level in the US this year, the Dearborn, Michigan-based auto maker said in a statement.
Ford models are on track to reach 2.2 million US sales up from 2.1 million last year, Erich Merkle, the company’s sales analyst, said in an interview.
Ford President and Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally spoke during the unveiling of the Ford Fusion in New York in September 2012.
Mulally is trying to boost profits by selling the same models globally, rather than different versions for various regions.
His One Ford strategy aims to leverage the second-largest US automaker’s economies of scale to improve profit margins. Ford earned $4.07bn in the first nine months of 2012, down from $6.6bn a year earlier as losses overseas dragged down profit.
“Over the last three years, we’ve been moving toward global vehicles,” Merkle said. “And it’s playing out very well here in the US , where the Focus will be up 40 per cent this year, and in Asia , where Focus is one of the best- selling vehicles in the region.”
Including its Lincoln luxury line, Ford will remain the second-best selling automaker in the US for 2012, behind General Motors, Merkle said.
While Toyota Motor narrowed the gap with Ford last year, the Toyota City, Japan- based auto maker trailed Ford by 141,746 cars and light trucks through November, according to researcher Autodata Corporation.
In addition to the Focus, Ford said its F-Series pickup line is the world’s fourth-best selling nameplate and its Fiesta subcompact ranks fifth.
Ford cited registration data gathered by auto researcher R.L. Polk and Company.