Ford harvests $2.6 bln net income in second quarter

• Source: Xinhua
• [08:36 July 26 2010]
• Comments

Ford Motor Co. has realized higher- than-expected net income of $2.6 billion for the second quarter, the automaker said in a statement posted on its website July 23.

"We delivered a very strong second quarter and first half of 2010 and are ahead of where we thought we would be despite the still-challenging business conditions," said Ford President and CEO Alan Mulally."We remain on track to deliver solid profits and positive Automotive operating-related cash flow for 2010, and we expect even better financial results in 2011."

"Our progress is being led by the strength of our new products and our leaner, global structure," Mulally added.

Compared with a $2.26 billion profit a year earlier Ford 's $2.6 billion quarterly profit was the highest quarterly total since the first quarter of 1998, its highest quarterly profit in 12 years.

Ford said it had repaid $7 billion of debt and expected to shift from a net debt position to a positive cash position sometime next year.

Financial analysts said Ford beat their expectations across a wide range of measures -- from its free-cash flow generation to the results of its North American and other regional operations.

The automaker's pre-tax operating profit totaled $2.9 billion, or 68 cents per share, the company's best quarterly operating performance since the first quarter of 2004. The operating results were much higher than analysts' expectations averaging 41 cents per share, according to the statement.

Ford's pre-tax profits in North America of 1.9 billion dollars also were well above most estimates.

Over the past year, it has increased its share of the US market to 16.9 percent from 16.4 percent.

Ford sold 1.4 million vehicles in the second quarter, up from 1.2 million a year ago.