Ford Focus is hot in China. Sales growth is outpacing the overall market.
Ford Motor and its communist government dictated partners set a sales record during October in China as the firms sold 60,518 cars and light trucks. Market leader General Motors sold more than 250,000 vehicles during the same period in the world’s largest car market.
Ford’s sales increases were led largely by the new Focus, which sold 33,614 in October and more than 221,000 year to date. Ford is now claiming the Focus was the best selling passenger car in China during August and September, but accurate statistics are slow to emerge in China, which lacks consistent industry wide sales numbers.
Overall, Ford passenger car sales, which include vehicles produced at Changan Ford Mazda Automobile and imported Ford Edge SUVs, totaled 44,489. In the commercial vehicle market, sales at Jiangling Motors Corporation (JMC), another JV in China that builds Transits increased 14% in October, with 16,029 wholesale vehicles sold in October compared to 14,006 sold the same time last year.
About Ken Zino
Ken Zino, editor and publisher of AutoInformed, is a versatile auto industry participant with global experience spanning decades in print and broadcast journalism, as well as social media. He has automobile testing, marketing, public relations and communications experience. He is past president of The International Motor Press Assn, the Detroit Press Club, founding member and first President of the Automotive Press Assn. He is a member of APA, IMPA and the Midwest Automotive Press Assn.
He also brings an historical perspective while citing their contemporary relevance of the work of legendary auto writers such as Ken Purdy, Jim Dunne or Jerry Flint, or writers such as Red Smith, Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson – all to bring perspective to a chaotic automotive universe.
Above all, decades after he first drove a car, Zino still revels in the sound of the exhaust as the throttle is blipped during a downshift and the driver’s rush that occurs when the entry, apex and exit points of a turn are smoothly and swiftly crossed. It’s the beginning of a perfect lap.
AutoInformed has an editorial philosophy that loves transportation machines of all kinds while promoting critical thinking about the future use of cars and trucks.
Zino builds AutoInformed from his background in automotive journalism starting at Hearst Publishing in New York City on Motor and MotorTech Magazines and car testing where he reviewed hundreds of vehicles in his decade-long stint as the Detroit Bureau Chief of Road & Track magazine. Zino has also worked in Europe, and Asia – now the largest automotive market in the world with China at its center.
