Japanese automakers crack Canadian top 3

[ShadowDog]

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/st...fe1bfeb&k=83316

Dave Hall, CanWest News Service; Windsor Star

Published: Wednesday, October 04, 2006

WINDSOR, Ont. - Japanese automakers bumped a pair of North America's largest domestic producers out of the top three in Canadian sales last month for the first time.

According to a report Tuesday from DesRosiers Automotive Consultants Inc., September sales from Toyota Canada Inc. and Honda Canada Inc. put them second and third respectively behind General Motors of Canada.

DaimlerChrysler Canada and Ford Motor Co. of Canada, meanwhile, posted modest gains to round out the top five.

Edited October 9, 2006 by MGZ06

[Northstar]

So, GM sells twice as many vehicles as anyone else in Canada? Cananda's numbers are less than 1/10 of the US's numbers, so it's really rather trivial in the grand scheme of things.

[Dsuupr]

It's not trivial if your a Ford or Chrysler fan or stock holder. Neither company seems to be going anywhere as of late, world wide or at home. Atleast no one can complain about GM in other parts of the world not doing their best.

[network engineer]

The article is faulty at any rate. Chrysler is German auto company. The only American auto company bumped out of the top 3 was Ford, and Ford will probably run itself out of business within the next 5 years.

[Shantanu]

The article is faulty at any rate.  Chrysler is  German auto company.  The only American auto company bumped out of the top 3 was Ford, and Ford will probably run itself out of business within the next 5 years.

202578[/snapback]

I don't think so.

Ford's legacy obligations are much less than GM. And Ford does well for itself in Europe and elsewhere.

Also, Ford made insane amounts of $$$ during the late 1990's. I think one year they posted a profit of $20 billion or something insane like that. The analysts used to rip on GM constantly, because they didn't chase light trucks as aggressively as Ford and Chrysler in the 1990's, and consequently posted much more modest profits. GM's pretty consistently been 50/50 cars/light trucks, whereas Ford and Chrysler were 25/75 when SUVs were booming, and still skew towards that ratio.

Now it's true that Ford blew much of their load on foolish acquisitions like Jaguar and Aston Martin and Land Rover, but they've still got a fair amount of cash socked away in the bank that will last them through many years of unprofitability.

Edited October 8, 2006 by Shantanu

[GEESIXER]

Seems like Canadia is just following the trend of the rest of the world. GM first then yota, and then the rest of the world.

[Newbiewar]

Seems like Canadia is just following the trend of the rest of the world.  GM first then yota, and then the rest of the world.

202933[/snapback]

wasnt it yota that said... "i sense much force in you"?

[CARBIZ]

The rest of what DesRosiers went on to say is there will no longer be a Big Three in Canada, but rather a Big One, with the Other Four (Ford, Chrysler, Toyota and Honda) napping at its heals.

As GM sinks to 26% market share this year in Canada, I think it has pretty much hit bottom - maybe dip to 24%, then stabalize.

Toyota will probably max out around 15%, with Ford, Chrysler, and Honda all settling in just below it. Mazda, Nissan, VW and other will all fight amongst themselves for the remaining 15-20% of the pie.

And Canada's market DOES matter to GM. GM cannot afford to lose 450k sales a year.

[MGZ06]

DesRosiers has been anti-big 3 for quite some time now, It's good to see that Dave Hall can show obvious. . . since Ford announced that they would be leaving Windsor in 2008, he's been bitter about how Toyota is hiring just north of us in the Waterloo area, the anti-union region of Canada simular to how the SouthEastern U.S's auto plants.

[network engineer]

I don't think so.

Ford's legacy obligations are much less than GM.  And Ford does well for itself in Europe and elsewhere.

Also, Ford made insane amounts of $$$ during the late 1990's.  I think one year they posted a profit of $20 billion or something insane like that.  The analysts used to rip on GM constantly, because they didn't chase light trucks as aggressively as Ford and Chrysler in the 1990's, and consequently posted much more modest profits.  GM's pretty consistently been 50/50 cars/light trucks, whereas Ford and Chrysler were 25/75 when SUVs were booming, and still skew towards that ratio.

Now it's true that Ford blew much of their load on foolish acquisitions like Jaguar and Aston Martin and Land Rover, but they've still got a fair amount of cash socked away in the bank that will last them through many years of unprofitability.

202625[/snapback]

I've done some research and have concluded that you are correct, in that, Ford Motor Company does have significant liquid assets. They have a cash horde of aobut $38 million dollars, when all assets from FOMOCO and Ford Motor Credit are pooled. This is a significant amount of operating cash, which Ford will need, considering they failed to make a profit in the first half of this year and do not expect to operate profitably until 2009. Ford has also decided not to pay dividends to stock holders and instead use the cash to reinvest in Product Development. What concerns me more is near double digit decline in sales in the first half of the year and a stock price currently trading at just over $5/ share which is a decline of about 16% from June of 2006. And while Ford, certainly made plentty of cash in the late 90's with their early adoption of SUV's, Light rucks and now Crossovers, their passenger cars have not improved with the pace of the industry. Despite declaring 2004 "The Year of the Car", the company brought out a much larger portfolio of Trucks. Nothing makes a Chevy Fan into a Ford lover faster than Toyota running up the sales charts, but it's harder to love someone that purposefully does things like run the fusion platfor across all 3 brands.