Ugly Motor Sales Continue (F, GM)

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) just released its November auto sales, and it is pretty hard to get excited about the data.  The company sold 118,818 units in November, below the 119,000 Edmunds.com predicted.  That would represent a drop of 30.6% from November 2007.   This is still only about 63% of what Edmunds expects from General Motors (NYSE: GM) where it estimates sales of 188,000 units.

November marked the official introduction of the all-new F-150.F-Series sales totaled 37,911 including nearly 5,000 all-new 2009 modelF-150s.  The company plans to produce 430,000 vehicles in the first quarter of2009.  During the first quarter of 2008, the company produced 692,000vehicles.  The fourth quarter 2008 production plan is unchanged fromthe previously announced plan of 430,000 vehicles.

Edmunds.com predicts GM sales will be down28.2 percent compared to November 2007 and up 11.2 percent from October2008. GM’s market share is expected to be 22.1 percent of new vehiclesales in November, down slightly from 22.3 percent in November2007 and up from 20.3 percent in October 2008.

The good news is that this was not any worse than the estimates.  Thebad news is that calling this good news would be like rewarding yourkid for almost passing the math class being taken for the third time.

Jon C. Ogg
December 2, 2008