Hurt by falling sales and steep restructuring costs Ford Motor Co. on July 20 posted a net quarterly loss of $123 million and promised deeper efforts in the next two months to turn its ailing operations around. Earnings in the April-June quarter reversed from a profit in the same period a year ago of $946 million.
"We've seen an improvement in North America results in the second quarter, but the external factors we face aren't going to get any easier," company chief executive Bill Ford said in a statement.
Second quarter revenue fell $2.5 billion from last year to $42 billion . But that still beat Wall Street's target for sales of $39.61 billion.
Also in the second quarter, Ford took special charges amounting to $486 million for costs related to layoffs and plant closures in North America. Ford is in the process of shedding 30,000 jobs and shutting or reducing capacity in 14 factories.
Ford's sales were down across all the major regions including North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
For the third quarter, Ford plans to produce 670,000 vehicles in North America. That is down 58,000 units from last year, and 40,000 fewer than Ford previously planned. Production in Europe is projected to rise 38,000 units from last year to 410,000.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2006
