AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)02/27 Report--

Ford's joint venture in Chongqing, China, has quietly begun to lay off thousands of jobs, according to an article about the Chinese auto market published by the New York Times.

As early as last October, Ford announced that it would make large-scale layoffs worldwide in the near future. at present, Ford employs about 200000 people worldwide, and 35% of its employees will be laid off according to Ford's plan, including Chinese employees.

After several years of substantial growth in China's auto market, the number of foreign car companies has reached its peak in China. In 2018, when China's automobile industry entered a cold winter, many car manufacturers found it very difficult to survive in China, and their sales not only stagnated. And there is a big retrogression, and Ford is one of them. Ford sold 752243 vehicles in China in 2018, down 36.9% from 2017. Among them, Changan Ford sold only 417000 vehicles, a decline of as much as 50 per cent.

In addition, Jiangling's sales fell 9.9% in 2018 to 263582 vehicles. In terms of imported cars, Ford sold 16131 imported cars in China in 2018, down 14.3 per cent from 2017.

The pace of new product launch of Changan Ford has slowed down significantly since 2015, and there are no new models launched in 2017, which makes Changan Ford gradually forgotten in the highly competitive market. In January this year, Jiangling Ford launched a compact SUV leader, but this leader is actually only "changing the standard" to win the S330.

At a time when major brands are advancing by leaps and bounds, Ford has gone downhill. Models such as focus and Wing Tiger, which were once generous and brilliant in China, have fallen off the altar. On the Internet, car owners have complained about their gearboxes, such as abnormal sounds and setbacks. There are also numerous complaints about engine oil leakage, broken axles and other problems, and its quality problems have seriously affected its brand reputation and recognition, which is also one of the important reasons why Ford's sales in China have been hindered.

Ford Motor is one of the top five auto companies in the world, and it is the first company to introduce the production line model to automobile production, but in recent years, Ford's reputation in China is not as good as it used to be, with sales stagnant and even a year-on-year decline of 36.9% in 2018. Ford sold 1.115 million vehicles in China in 2015, compared with 1.27 million in 2016, and nearly 1.2 million in 2017, down 6 per cent from 2016. Given the performance of Ford's sales in China in recent years, it is not surprising that its factories have laid off thousands of workers.

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