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Ford Posts Third Quarter 2010 Net Income of $1.7 Billion

Ford Motor Company yesterday reported third quarter net income of $1.7 billion, or 43 cents per share, a $690 million improvement from third quarter 2009, as strong products, momentum in North America and continued success at Ford Credit fueled growth amid still-challenging business conditions.

The company is on track to gain full-year market share in the U.S. for the second straight year, marking the first time since 1993 that Ford has achieved consecutive annual increases.

“This was another strong quarter and we continue to gain momentum with our One Ford plan,” said Ford President and CEO Alan Mulally. “Delivering world class products and aggressively restructuring our business has enabled us to profitably grow even at low industry volumes in key regions.”

“They key drivers for improvement in 2011 will be our growing product strength, a gradually strengthening economy and an unrelenting focus on improving the competitiveness of all our operations,” Mulally added.

Ford now expects Automotive operating-related cash to be about equal to its debt by year end, earlier than previously expected. This will be an improvement of $8 billion to $9 billion from the end of last year.

“Our performance through the first nine months has clearly exceeded our initial expectations and is enabling us to make additional significant balance sheet improvements in the fourth quarter,” said Lewis Booth, Ford executive vice president and chief financial officer. “We are now in a period where we are focusing on growing the business profitably around the world following the hard work that has been done by the entire Ford team to fix the fundamentals of the business.”

Ford expects fourth quarter 2010 production to be up 27,000 units compared with year-ago levels. Fourth quarter production will be up 89,000 units compared to third quarter 2010 production, reflecting the normal seasonal increase following summer shutdowns, as well as new product launches and projected industry growth as economic conditions improve. Overall, Ford’s production plans are consistent with its strategy to match supply to demand.

Ford expects full-year 2010 U.S. industry volume to be 11.6 million units. In the 19 markets Ford tracks in Europe, full-year industry volume is expected to be 15 million units.

Each of Ford’s regions is on track to improve quality compared with a year ago, based on the latest Global Quality Research System surveys.

Ford expects to build upon its performance this year with continued improvement in 2011 in total Company profitability and Automotive operating-related cash flow. This includes improvement in its Automotive operations, driven primarily by growing product strength with new vehicles, continued productivity improvements and the gradually strengthening global economy.

Global industry volume for 2011 is expected to grow from the 2010 level.

“The entire global Ford team remains focused on continuously improving our core operations and expanding the business in key growth regions of the world,” Mulally said. “Our plan is to continue to improve our competitiveness to deliver profitable growth for all.”

Source: Ford