Ford Posts Profit Beat, Pledges $29B for EVs and Autonomous Vehicles
Ford Motor (F) – Get Report beat Wall Street’s fourth-quarter earnings expectations and promised to invest $29 billion into electric and autonomous vehicles.
Shares of the Dearborn, Mich., auto major were up 1.2% to $11.68 in after hours trading.
Ford reported a net loss of $2.8 billion, or 70 cents a share, compared with a loss of $1.7 billion, or 42 cents a share, a year earlier.
Adjusted profit came to 34 cents a share, while analysts surveyed by FactSet expected Ford to report a loss of 7 cents a share.
Revenue totaled $36 billion, compared with the year-ago total of $39.7 billion. The FactSet consensus called for $36.8 billion in revenue.
Retail sales in China were up 30%, the company said, faster than the overall industry, as Ford recorded its fourth straight quarter of share growth.
“The transformation of Ford is happening and so is our leadership of the EV revolution and development of autonomous driving,” Ford President and CEO Jim Farley said in a statement.
Farley said the company is allocating a combined $29 billion in capital “and tremendous talent to these two areas.”
Earlier on Thursday, Ford Ford said it would temporarily cut production of its extremely popular F-15 pick-up truck at two plants due to a worldwide shortage of computer chips. Other auto companies have announced similar cutbacks.
The No. 2 U.S. automaker also said the global semiconductor chip shortage could lead to a 10% to 20% loss in first-quarter production, according to Reuters.
On Wednesday, Ford unveiled the overhauled version of its F-150 Raptor.
The automaker on Wednesday also posted solid January sales figures, boosted by improving demand for electric vehicles and trucks. Ford said electric vehicle sales rose 18.5% from last year over January, thanks to better takeup of its F-150 and Explorer hybrids.
TheStreet.com Founder Jim Cramer said earlier this week that “Ford is a very interesting stock to own and I continue to recommend it.”
“I think people, if they look at what we’re recommending, they should own Ford,” Cramer said, “and they should own Ford because Jim Farley is bringing that company very much into the 21st century.”
On Monday, Ford and Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL) – Get Report said they had signed a six-year partnership to produce connected vehicles based on Google’s Android operating system, apps and services.
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