Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) had a gloomy month of October having encountered a sales decline of 12%. It is perhaps the reason why the automaker has already started touting its Black Friday sale even though it is three weeks away. It could be a means of recovery given the aligned offers the likes of $1,000 “Black Friday Cash” repayments on 2016 and 2017 model-year vehicles. Unlike the 213,105 light vehicles sold in October of 2015, the automaker sold only 187,692. The low figures were attributed to a fire that hit the company’s headquarters causing a delay for dealers to report on their final-day sales.
Ford did not suffer the declines alone. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV was also a victim of decline as a result of weaknesses in several of their product lines. The sale, which Ford is referring to as a “year-end event” would perhaps be the best time to shop for America’s Best Selling Brand because it will be more of a promotion.
Justification for the Black Friday sale
Ford has all the reasons to carry out the Black Friday sale. The investors have nothing positive to write home about CEO Mark Fields. The recent America results for the number two U.S. car company were more than disappointing given that they were below expectations. Similarly, the third-quarter earnings were awful with net income roping from $1.2 billion to $1.09 billion.
A majority of automakers have not aggressively been part of Black Friday merchandising in a long time. They have been relying on year-end clearances, which the Dearborn, Mich., automaker chose to overlook and instead called for an earlier one. However, several automakers have been spending more on discounts and rebates in an effort to owe more customers.
But it was not all gloomy even with the stalled growth
After reporting a fall of 5.8% in industrywide light-vehicle sales data provider, Autodata Corp says that there still hope. The Autodata’s estimation for the annual rate of sales is 18-million, which even though is below the prior October’s 18.2 million; it is still a substantial figure. Ford takes the second position after GM. However, Blue Oval brand somewhat outsells GM’s high-volume Chevrolet brand.
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