A Ford F-150 (Front) is seen at a Ford dealership in northern suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, the United States, on Oct. 1, 2020. Ford Motor Co. sold 551,796 vehicles in the third quarter of this year, down 4.9 percent year on year, according to the quarterly performance results the U.S. automaker released on Friday. (Photo by Joel Lerner/Xinhua)

 Ford Motor Co. sold 551,796 vehicles in the third quarter of this year, down 4.9 percent year on year, according to the quarterly performance results the US automaker released on Friday.

Compared to the second quarter, the Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker's sales in the third quarter rose 27.2 percent, beating its US rivals.

To be specific, Ford's truck sales came to 311,751 in the third quarter, down 0.6 percent year on year; SUV sales, 191,803, down 0.7 percent; and car sales, 48,424, down 37.5 percent. What is worth noting is that compared with 4.9-percent year-on-year drop in total sales, Ford's retails sales of vehicles dropped only 2 percent year on year in the third quarter, with truck sales growing 8.3 percent, showing stronger retail sales and rapidly recovering commercial sales. Excluding discontinued cars, Ford retail sales in third quarter went up 1.3 percent.

Ford's overall Pickup sales of combined F-Series and Ranger totaled 249,997 in the third quarter, representing Ford's best third-quarter pickup sales since 2005, with combined sales up 4 percent over a year ago.

Ford saw the largest F-series sales growth coming from the southeast, up 18.1 percent over a year ago. The west and the northeast also reported growth of 17.3 percent and 17.8 percent, respectively.

Ford has sold about 1.5 million vehicles in the first three quarters of this year, down 17.5 percent from more than 1.8 million vehicles sold at the same period of 2019.

"Despite the challenging pandemic environment, our retail unit sales were down only 2 percent and we had our best third quarter of pickup truck sales since 2005," said Mark LaNeve, Ford's vice president of US Marketing, Sales and Service, in a statement. "This is a testament to our winning product portfolio and the performance of our great dealers."

Overall, US auto industry staged a fairly strong recovery in the third quarter, the Detroit News quoted experts as saying, though lack of inventory was a challenge for dealers.

But experts warned that the fourth quarter may not be quite as rosy due to tight inventories, bad economic news, concerns as pandemic hotspots break-out, and the political uncertainty in the time of presidential election.

Industry analysts expect 2020 US auto sales to be down industrywide, the Detroit News said.