Ford sales jump, rest of Canada auto sector slumps

By John McCrank

TORONTO (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co (F.N: Quote) of Canada was the number one selling automaker in the country for the first time in 50 years as it posted a 25 percent jump in sales in June over a year earlier, the company said on Thursday.

Overall auto sales in Canada fell by 13.2 percent in June to 138,500 units, according to data from DesRosiers Automotive Consultants Inc. It was the eighth month in a row of year-over-year sales declines.

Ford, the only Detroit auto company not supported by emergency government funding, sold 27,408 vehicles in Canada in June, marking its first year-over-year sales increase of 2009, and its eighth month in a row of market share gain.

Ford Canada's car sales dipped 1.5 percent in the month to 6,648 units, while truck sales surged 36.1 percent to 20,760.

David Mondragon, Ford Canada's president and chief executive, told Reuters that while the overall market appears to have bottomed, there will likely be some difficult months ahead before industrywide sales really begin to recover in the fourth quarter.

"We are not waving a flag of victory by any means," he said. "This was a good month and we're going to celebrate the month, but we're going to continue to focus on our plan to grow our share of the market as the year goes on."

Mondragon said that while he expects overall Canadian vehicle sales to be down by 14 percent to 18 percent during the third quarter, Ford Canada has already begun ramping up production.

"We've added 16 percent of year-over-year production increase in the third quarter to help us meet higher levels of demand and forecast higher levels of demand as we go into the later part of the third and into the fourth quarter," he said.