Archive for the ‘market share’ Category

The rumors were true: Ford Motor Company has just published financials from the third quarter of 2009, and without being overly optimistic, it's fair to say that the data is moderately rosy. Among several bright spots in the report, one that seems particularly impressive is that July - September of 2009 saw Ford North America's first profit since the first quarter of 2005, four-and-a-half years ago.

In addition to Ford's North American pre-tax profit of $357 million, the company recorded a total net income of $997 million during Q3. That's a substantial improvement on the roughly $200 million loss posted one year ago, during Q3 of 2008...

It's no secret that pickup sales have been suffering for some time. The segment's troubles hit full-tilt when fuel prices spiked during the summer of 2008, and those problems were magnified by the economic turmoil that began walloping the globe last fall. But there is some light at the end of the tunnel for pickup fans and manufacturers: the folks at Barclays Capital see growth in the truck segment's near future.

Barclays' analysis is based on two key predictions: (1) that manufacturers and dealerships will slather truck-buyers with loads of incentives this fall, and (2) that the slowly rebounding U.S. economy will result in more...

Back in June, you might recall that Audi announced plans to roll its new A1 citycar into dealerships by early 2010. The automaker said that the A1 would debut as a three-door model, but that a five-door sportback version would soon follow. At the time, the A1 was slated only for European release.

However, there's a lot of auto news flowing from Germany right now, and among the items crossing our desk is a bit from German magazine Handelsblatt, which reports that Audi's head of sales, Peter Schwarzbauer, does, in fact, want to bring the A1 to America. In the article, Schwarzbauer refers to the "second generation" of the A1 when discussing...