Ford Aus sales almost matches Toyota

[05MkIIFutura]

What a dismal year 2006 was for Ford – both globally and locally.

While Ford Motor Company in the United States posted a US$12.7 billion ($16.1b) loss for the 12 months and came ever closer to losing its local number-two-car-maker status to Toyota, life wasn’t much happier at its Australian outpost.

Falcon and Territory sales plummeted by a fifth compared with 2005 sales, and overall showroom traffic was down 11 per cent.

But last year did serve up one snippet of good news for Broadmeadows…

We all know that Toyota is currently Australia’s favourite automotive brand, according to 2006’s VFACTS industry sales figures. And both its 2006 sales and market share were nearly double that of Ford’s (213,847 v 114,511 and 22.2 v 11.9 per cent respectively).

Yet if we level the playing field for Australia’s top 10 brands (again according to 2006 VFACTS), and divide each car maker’s 2006 passenger car and 4WD sales by the number of those vehicles offered, an interesting picture emerges as you can see from the table.


Passenger cars and 4WDs - 2006

Brand - Sales - Number of models - Average sales per vehicle
Toyota - 158,609 - 13 - 12,197
Ford - 88,454 - 8 - 11,057
Holden - 112,955 - 13 - 8,689
Subaru - 37,520 - 5 - 7,504
Mazda - 56,332 - 8 - 7,042


Ford not only leapfrogs Holden into second place, but its average sales per passenger/4WD vehicle sold is surprisingly close to Toyota’s figure.

Of course it’s not as simple as suggesting Ford Australia could boost its sales to 143,741 by offering the same number of passenger cars or 4WDs as Toyota (13 x 11,057), but there’s no doubt the company knows it must expand its line-up if it is to at least maintain its current status as Australia’s third most popular manufacturer.

And it’s why (even though it has yet to be made official) Ford Australia will announce at next month’s Melbourne motor show that it will be reintroducing the mid-size Mondeo (in next-generation form) towards the end of the year.

It gives Ford a competitor in the medium-car market that remained solid in 2006, but perhaps more importantly it will allow the company to make up for the Territory’s major shortfall by offering a diesel engine after private diesel vehicle sales doubled year on year.

Maybe they’ll consider the S-Max, too, the people-mover that not only has the adjective ‘funky’ regularly applied to it but was also voted 2007 European Car of the Year.

Both the Mondeo and S-Max are from Ford of Europe, the same company that exports the upcoming Focus Coupe-Cabriolet and what are currently Ford Australia’s fastest-growing models – the Fiesta and Focus.

Are there any other Fords you would like to see imported from either America (such as Edge, Mustang, etc) or Europe (such as Fusion, Galaxy, Focus C-Max)?


Jez Spinks

Posted on February 19, 2007 03:03 PM