OREANDA-NEWS. Driven by strong demand across its vehicle range – including SUVs, commercial vehicle and performance cars – Ford’s total vehicle sales and market share in Europe continued to grow in January.

For total vehicle and passenger car sales, it was the best January for Ford since 2012, selling 96,900 vehicles in its 20 traditional European markets. This was almost a 10 per cent increase compared with January 2015, and about 3 percentage points better than industry growth. Ford market share increased by 0.2 percentage points to 7.9 per cent.

Across all of its 50 European markets, Ford sold a total of 105,200 vehicles – up nearly 9 per cent vs an industry growth of just 3 per cent – and driving Ford’s market share up 0.4 of a percentage point to 7.6 per cent.

“The European auto industry is off to a very strong start and Ford was able to outpace this growth thanks largely to demand for our SUVs, commercial vehicles and performance vehicles,” said Roelant de Waard, vice president, Marketing, Sales and Service, Ford of Europe.

“Importantly, we gained share by selling to retail customers while many others in industry are using self-registration and rentals sales extensively.”

Ford’s sales in higher value sales channels were markedly up in January. Retail and fleet sales accounted for 81 per cent of Ford’s car sales in January – 3 percentage points better than in the same month last year and 11 percentage points better than the industry average.

Commercial vehicles:
Ford CV vehicle sales enjoyed a strong month, increasing by 7 per cent last month on growing demand for the new and expanded Transit range and the Ranger pickup. It was the best January for Ford CV sales since 2008. Sales of the Transit Connect and Transit 2-tonne were particularly strong, with sales increases of 28 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively. Our share of the commercial vehicle market was 12.7 per cent.

SUVs:
Ford’s drive to increase its SUV sales continued in January, with EcoSport compact SUV sales up 50 per cent and Kuga midsize SUV sales increasing by 19 per cent. Due to growing demand for its SUVs and with the launch of the new Edge large SUV in the first half of 2016, Ford expects its SUV sales to grow by about 30 per cent in 2016 compared with 2015, and to break the 200,000 sold barrier for the very first time in Europe.

Performance:
Combined sales of Ford’s current performance line-up – including the Fiesta ST, Focus ST and Focus ST diesel, and Mustang – almost tripled vs January last year. With the launch of the new Focus RS, Ford expects record sales of performance cars in Europe this year. In total, some
40,000 Ford performance cars are likely to be sold in 2016 – a 50 per cent improvement on 2015 which itself saw performance car sales rise by 61 per cent.

Outlook:
After increasing market share in each of the past two years and boosting vehicle sales 10 per cent in 2015, Ford will launch seven new and refreshed vehicles in Europe during 2016, including the new Kuga and Edge SUVs, Focus RS performance car, new powertrain and technologies for Transit Custom and Transit 2-tonne, and a freshened Ranger pick-up.