Ford’s Focus and Explorer models saw strong sales gains during the month of January, but new data suggests those gains could be coming at the expense of other models in the Ford lineup.
Sales of the Focus increased an impressive 59.7 percent during January, but sales of the similarly-sized Fiesta dropped 18 percent during the month. A similar trend unfolded in January between the Explorer and Edge, with the Explorer’s sales increasing 35.5 percent while the Edge’s sales slipped 6.7 percent.
Although a single month of sales is hardly enough to constitute a trend, historical data suggests the Focus and Explorer have been cannibalizing sales of the Fiesta and Edge for several months.
When the Explorer launched in late 2010, its sales were pretty much on par with that of the Edge. That trend continued until March, at which time the Explorer began to far outsell the Edge. In fact, the Explorer has outsold the Edge every month since with the exception of September.
Although the Fiesta has never been a hot-seller for Ford in the U.S., evidence suggests the Focus has stolen away what little demand there was for the Fiesta sub-compact. The Focus routinely doubles or triples the Fiesta’s sales, and the greatest disparity between the two occurred last June when the Fiesta managed just 5,535 sales to the Focus’ 21,385 sales.
Fiesta sales peaked at 9,787 units in March 2011.
Although the Focus and Explorer compete in two completely different segments, they do have one distinct advantage over their in-house rivals – they both are newer. The vehicles also hold similar price points to their rivals despite a slight difference in overall size.
“The two vehicles (Focus and Fiesta) are close together in terms of size and price point,†Erich Merkle, Ford’s top U.S. sales analyst, told WardsAuto. “At this point in time, (the) Focus is the newer vehicle and people are gravitating toward it.â€
Ford’s overall January sales increased 7.9 percent, but it remains unknown how much of that growth was attributed to fleet sales. It was revealed last month that Ford is the largest supplier to fleet buyers, with nearly 33 percent of the automaker’s vehicles winding up in fleet inventories.
