Ford sales drop but rivals rise

The slump in U.S. vehicle sales by Ford Motor Co. caused the traditionally no.2 automaker to get beaten by both Toyota Motor Corp. and DaimlerChrysler AG and fall to the no. 4 spot for the first time. This is also the second time ever that it gets beaten by the Japanese rival, Toyota.

North America’s top selling vehicle and one of the biggest contributors to Ford's bottom line, the F-Series pick-up truck reported steep 16 per cent drop in demand causing the troubled Detroit-based carmaker's sales to fall by 9.6 per cent in November from the same period a year ago. The automaker sold 182,259 vehicles.

Sales of Toyota vehicles were up 15.9 per cent from those in November 2005. The automaker reported sale of 196,695 vehicles in November this year while DaimlerChrysler sold 186,635 vehicles to go up by 4.7 per cent. The world's largest automaker, GM reported its sales to be the most of any manufacturer rising 6.1 percent to 293,558 vehicles in the U.S. last month.

According to Autodata Corp. the drop for Ford came as industry sales rose a modest 2.9 percent to nearly 1.2 million vehicles.

“It was disappointing,” Ford’s chief sales analyst, George Pipas, said on a conference call with reporters and Wall Street analysts. “We missed our own internal sales targets for the month.” Besides the fall in pick-up sales, Mr Pipas said that the Ford had lagged in advertising new features on its mid-sized sedans.

Toyota spokesman Xavier Dominicis said the company isn't focused on market share.

"Our ranking within the industry is really driven by actions our competitors take or don't take," he said.

Ford has warned that its market share is likely to continue dropping for some time after it posted a $5.2bn third-quarter loss.