Ford sales up 44% in first 8 months

Bucking the auto sales downtrend, Ford Philippines registered a 44-percent sales surge in the January-August period, selling 6,164 units.

Data from the company showed that its performance in the first eight months of the year could be attributed to the strong take-up of the “Fiesta,” which sold 2,293 units during the period.

The Everest nameplate added another 1,771 units to total sales as of end-August—a 16-percent rise from the same period last year.

In August alone, Ford Philippines sold 21 percent more vehicles at 741 units. The Fiesta accounted for almost half of those sales at 309 units.

The Fiesta nameplate has been Ford Philippines’ best-selling model these past several months, reflecting motorists’ continuing love affair with smaller cars.

In an earlier interview, Ford Group Philippines president Randy Krieger said that the Fiesta nameplate was expected to be Ford Philippines’ best-selling model for the whole of 2011 and possibly beyond.

“It’s not only boosting our sales, but bringing more attention to the Ford brand in the country. It has helped us gain momentum across all our products,” Krieger had earlier said.

Krieger said that rising oil prices was actually an opportunity for Ford to take advantage of the small car market, as well as a chance to launch more fuel-efficient big vehicles.

The launch of more small, fuel-efficient cars, he said, was also part of the US carmaker’s One Ford strategy. Under the program, products that would be developed for the global market would be the same across the board and not tailored for specific markets.

For example, instead of developing one small car for the European market and another one for the Asia-Pacific market, only one small car would be rolled out in all Ford markets worldwide, Krieger explained. This would allow the company to better take advantage of economies of scale as well as strengthen the Ford brand globally.