DETROIT: Ford Motor Co reported a better-than-expected quarterly net profit on Thursday, driven by sales of high-margin pickup trucks and SUVs in the US market and cost-cutting, and raised the low end of its full-year earnings forecast.
Ford's results came despite an overall decrease in wholesale vehicle volumes.
A large part of the company's profits came from its F-Series pickup trucks, which have been the best-selling vehicle in North America for decades. Ford said the average transaction price for its trucks rose $2,800 to $45,400.
Apart from North America, the only other region that was profitable for Ford was Asia-Pacific, driven by sales increases outside China.
New CEO Jim Hackett is under pressure to please Wall Street. Following his first 100 days in office, Mr Hackett's overarching message to Wall Street focused on plans to slash $14 billion in costs over the next five years, and shift capital investment away from sedans and internal combustion engines to develop more trucks and electric and hybrid cars.
Wall Street was underwhelmed, particularly by Mr Hackett's caveat that most of the savings will not show up on Ford's bottom line until 2019 and 2020.
Ford said it had lower engineering, advertising and promotion expenses than in the third quarter.
The second largest US automaker posted a quarterly net profit of $1.56 billion, or 39 cents per share, up more than 60% from $960 million, or 24 cents, a year earlier.
Excluding one-time items, Ford reported earnings per share of 43 cents, above Wall Street expectations of 32 cents.
Revenue rose to $36.45 billion from $35.94 billion a year earlier.
Ford said it now expects full-year earnings in a range of $1.75 to $1.85 per share. Previously it had looked for $1.65 to $1.85.
In premarket trading, Ford shares were up 18 cents at $12.22.