Soundbites: July 2012 Sales
Ford Motor Company's U.S. retail sales increased 2 percent in July versus year-ago levels, driven by strong retail customer demand for fuel-efficient vehicles. Ford Sales Analyst, Erich Merkle, says fuel economy appears to be the driving force in both cars and trucks.
Click on 
to hear audio. Use right mouse click to download.
| Cut #1: |
"Yes it certainly was, it's really fuel economy, but it's fuel economy across entire segments. So we saw it in pick-up trucks, for instance in EcoBoost, continues to do very well in the market place, we saw it with our Fusion, on the car side and also with the Focus, Focus performed very well for the month too." :20 sec. |
| Merkle says Ford Fusion led the way, with its best July ever. | |
| Cut #2: |
"We saw it in cars and in trucks, when we saw Fusion… Fusion had its best July ever, which surpassed its record July sales of last year by 21 percent, so not only did it have its best July, but it was up 21 percent over its best July last year." :19 sec. |
| In addition to that, Mustang also saw a jump in sales. | |
| Cut #3: |
"Mustang increased in sales 8 percent versus last year, selling 7,371 vehicles. This represents the third straight month of sales gains for Mustangs since the 2013 model started arriving on dealership lots." :17 sec. |
| In spite of all these increases, however, the overall sales were down 4 percent in July… Merkle says a lot of that had to do with fleet sales, but commercial sales helped to balance that off. | |
| Cut #4: |
"We expect to remain on pace with our fleet throughout the rest of this year. On the commercial side of the business, our commercial sales are up 9 percent year to date. So we've been performing very well on the commercial side, but we've been very mindful, we've managed really very well the daily rental portion of our business. Gotta make sure we don't want to put too much into daily rental, but a little is fine, so there is a healthy mix that we've been able to maintain over the years." :28 sec. |
| Ford Motor Company's July U.S. retail sales totaled 173,966, which compared to year ago sales were up 2 percent. |