AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)09/21 Report--

On Sept. 20, American carmaker Ford issued a profit warning for the third quarter, saying it expected to incur additional costs of $1 billion in the third quarter due to inflation and supply chain problems. At the same time, it noted that a shortage of parts had led to delays in delivery, affecting about 40, 000 to 45000 vehicles, while most of the vehicles were high-margin trucks and SUV, which were expected to be manufactured and delivered in the fourth quarter. Affected by the news, Ford's US shares fell 12.32% to close at $13.09 per share, with a total market capitalization of $52.625 billion. Compared with the previous day's total market value, Ford Motor lost $7.3 billion (about 51.2 billion yuan) a day.

Over the past two years, Ford has been affected by supply chain and epidemic problems, during which production has been suspended or reduced several times. As early as February this year, Ford suspended production at eight Ford plants in North America for a week because of a shortage of supply chains. In April this year, the Ford plant in the United States was reported by CCTV that the vehicle could not install the chip for delivery because of a shortage of chips, so it had to be left idle. In response, Ford also said it would sell some "semi-finished" vehicles that lack chips for non-safety-critical functions, and promised to reissue the chips to dealers a year later, who would assist in installing the vehicles.

In addition to having to sell semi-finished vehicles that lack chips, Ford's first-quarter sales figures are also deeply problematic in the supply chain. According to relevant data, Ford's wholesale volume fell 9 per cent to 970000 vehicles in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period last year. Ford said it was mainly due to the slowdown in its product shipments due to problems in the supply chain. Jim Farley, president of Ford Motor Company, once said: "Ford has identified and is making every effort to address a variety of key issues affecting the company's profitability and business growth." And pointed out that "whether Bronco, Bronco Sport, Maverick, or Mustang Mach-E, E-Transit and recently officially put into production FMI150 Lightning, these models have a great attraction to consumers, but also continue to bring us considerable orders."

However, models are attractive to consumers, and the supply chain can not keep up with the delay in delivery, which also affects sales to a certain extent. On July 28th, Ford reported second-quarter revenue of $40.19 billion, up 50% from the same period in 2021, and net profit of $667 million, up 18.89% from a year earlier. Ford's cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash reserves stood at $20.134 billion as of June 30. Ford said it expects adjusted earnings before interest and tax of between $115 and $12.5 billion for the full year 2022 to increase by 15 to 25 per cent compared with 2021, and expects wholesale sales of cars to rise by 10 to 15 per cent for the whole of 2022 compared with 2021.

Although Ford's revenue and net profit increased in the second quarter compared with the same period last year, Ford did not perform well in the second quarter of the Chinese market. According to the results, Ford's revenue in China fell 20 per cent to $400m in the second quarter of 2022 from a year earlier, while profit before interest and tax lost $121 million, up from a loss of $53 million in the first quarter. In terms of sales, Ford sold 114000 vehicles in China, down 24% from a year earlier. In response to the decline in sales in the Chinese market, Ford said the decline was affected by the epidemic.

Earlier, many people in the industry expected that the problem of "lack of core" this year is expected to be alleviated, but at present, the chip problem is still scarce, and the price of raw materials is still rising sharply. The shortage of chips is still a "hindrance" for many car companies in the process of delivery. According to the latest data from auto industry data forecasting company AutoForecast Solutions, as of Sept. 4, the global auto market has lost about 3.1561 million vehicles due to chip shortage in 2022. The cumulative production reduction in the global car market is expected to climb to 3.9951 million by the end of this year.

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