A 40% sales drop is expected in January, says Ford Motors. “Our research indicates that retail sales are pretty much flat compared with December,” said Jesse Toprak, Edmunds.com’s executive director of Industry Analysis.
“However, automakers’ decision to cut fleet sales and make other production cuts will cause a large sales decline to be recorded on the books.”
Ford reported total sales of 93,041 in January 2008. Where as 2009 predictions are for it to end on a higher note than it started. Evidence of this is indicated by the fact that pent-up demand seems to be growing.
However the industry sale figures are expected to be down by 5 to 10% in the following year, according to George Pipas, Ford’s senior sales analyst.
Ford will sell 109,000 units in January, down 29.8% compared to January 2008 and down 19.4% from December 2008. This would result in a new car market share of 15% of new car sales in January for Ford, up slightly from 14.9% in January 2008 and down from 15.2% in December 2008.
Pipas says, “considering the economy many rental and commercialized businesses have dropped purchase of new fleet vehicles.”
