Ford Motor stated on Friday its automobile sales in China, obstructed in part by a lack of new products, decreasing 30 percent in February from a year earlier, as it continued to have a hard time in the world’s largest auto market.
The U.S. automaker, whose sales in January dropped 18 percent year-on-year, stated sales volumes last month amounted to 47,483 vehicles.
Sales volumes in first 2 months of the year dropped 23 percent to 123,473 vehicles from the same period a year ago.
The decrease in February sales was partly because of fewer number of working days in the month because of a late lunar Chinese new year vacation, stated Peter Fleet, head of Ford’s Asia-Pacific operations along with the company’s China chief.
Still, a bigger aspect behind the sales downturn was what Fleet and other company officials have referred as the dearth of new or substantially revamped vehicle models in its item pipeline – a scenario that has weighed on the automaker’s business at least since early 2017.
Ford does not expect brand-new items to start hitting the market in China up until the first quarter of next year.
Fleet stated the company was aiming to rearrange its business in China and noted that Ford’s crucial top priorities for 2018 are to “reinforce our core business, enhance our functional fitness and accelerate our tactical shift to profit from emerging market opportunities”.
Ford prepares to introduce over 50 new or considerably redesigned automobiles in China by the end of 2025. Those brand-new models include 8 new SUVs and 15 new EVs, the company stated.
