Ford Earns 40 Cents Per Share

Although the stock market is closed again, we still have earnings reports coming out. This morning, Ford Motor ($F) released an outstanding earnings report. For the third quarter, the automaker made 40 cents per share. That was 10 cents more than Wall Street had been expecting.

The story is very simple—North America is strong and Europe is weak. The company has done a very good job of expanding its margins.

For Q3, Ford had profits of $2.2 billion which was up from $1.9 billion, or 34 cents per share, for the same quarter last year. Total revenue dropped 4%, from $32.1 billion to $30.9 billion.

Its Asia and Africa operations posted a pre-tax profit of $45 million, compared with a loss of $43 million. Ford said the unit benefitted from the launch of its new Ranger pick up and redesigned Focus compact in the region. Ford is investing heavily in Asia and the investment, along with a sluggish Chinese market, is damping profitability.

South American operations posted a pre-tax profit $9 million, compared with $276 million pre-tax profits a year earlier. Ford said the region should post a profit for the year.

In North America, Ford made $2.3 billion; but in Europe, Ford lost $468 million. The company expects to see more losses going forward. Over the last few years, Ford has cut capacity in North America and we’re seeing the fruits of those efforts today. They need to use the same strategy in Europe.

Posted by on October 30th, 2012 at 11:38 am


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