Boosted in part by rebounding sales in North America, Ford on Oct. 26 reported profit jumped nearly 70% in the third quarter. The company posted net income of $1.7 billion in the July-September period, up $690 million from a year ago.
Excluding special items, the company reported pre-tax operating profit rose for a fifth consecutive quarter, to $2.1 billion. That was an improvement of $1.1 billion from the 2009 third quarter.
Revenue was $29 billion, a decline of $1.3 billion from the same period a year ago.
Ford said it was on track to gain market share in the United States for a second straight year. That would mark the first time since 1993 the automaker would have back-to-back annual increases.
The Ford North America division said it had third-quarter pre-tax operating profit of $1.6 billion, up $1.3 billion from a year earlier.
The company also announced new steps to reduce debt, including further paying down its revolving credit line by $2 billion in the third quarter. Ford said it would prepay the remaining $3.6 billion of debt owed to the VEBA retiree health care trust by the end of October, and has launched conversion offers on two convertible debt securities.
"Delivering world-class products and aggressively restructuring our business has enabled us to profitably grow even at low industry volumes in key regions," Ford CEO Alan Mulally said.
"The key drivers for improvement in 2011 will be our growing product strength, a gradually strengthening economy and an unrelenting focus on improving the competitiveness of all our operations," he added.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2010
