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Motoring: Ford Motor Company Gains LCV Market Share
Recent Gauteng Business News
When NAAMSA (the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of SA) released their monthly figures, Ford was happy to notice that new vehicles sales rose to their highest level since October 2008, supported by continued high rental volumes ahead of the soccer world cup.
“October 2008 marked the start of the major slump in sales and the market is close to returning to those kinds of volumes, which is reassuring,” says VP of Marketing, Sales and Service for the Ford Motor Company of Southern Africa, Jacques Brent.
Ford's growth during February is largely thanks to the popularity of their LCVs (Light Commercial Vehicles), like the Bantam and the Ranger.
The Ford Ranger sold 695 models while the Bantam came in second with 600 sales. The Mazda BT-50 sold 435 models and exported 7 more.
Passenger car sales declined almost 4% over January, but were almost 30% ahead of February 2009. With a sales figure of 755, the Ford Fiesta continued to be the
company’s best-selling passenger car while the Mazda2 currently accounts for
the largest portion of Mazda passenger car sales with 285 cars sold in
February.
Ford sold 1730 LCVs during the month, increasing the company's LCV market share to 16%. These figures made up for the decrease in passenger car sales and allowed Ford to combat supply issues on some of
their passenger car models to maintain a strong overall performance and
their position in the market.
While sales were far ahead of the same month last year, a marked decline in sales could be seen over the last month. “But while growth looks good compared to last year and volumes begin approaching the levels experienced in the latter part of 2008, the market has some way to go to recovering to the sales levels enjoyed in the beginning of 2008,” says Brent.
Business News Sector Tags: Motoring|