September Sales: Ford Falls 21%, Drops to #3 Place

DETROIT, MI-- Ford Motor Co.'s U.S. vehicle sales plunged 20% in September, despite an average of $3,074 in incentives per vehicle, vs. $802 per vehicle for Toyota, which has overtaken Ford for the #2 spot for sales so far this year (see chart above).

Actually, Ford's car sales slipped a whopping 39% in September 2007 vs. September 2006, according to AutoData, while trucks sales dropped by "only" 8.6%, Jaguars sales fell by 8.4% and Volvo dropped 13.1%. Land Rover sales increased by 21%, the only bright spot for Ford's September sales numbers.

WSJ: "The overall seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales equaled 16.23 million vehicles during the month, according to Autodata Corp. The result was reasonably better than many analysts and auto-company officials had been expecting, after August's relatively weak showing. But the latest sales pace was still well below the trend set over the course of the decade and into the early months of this year. Most analysts now expect total light-vehicle sales in 2007 to crawl to 16 million vehicles, well below the 16.7 million rate that is generally considered healthy."