Ford Rides the Waves with the Focus and C-Max

Two bets that paid off, one might say by looking at the sales numbers posted by American manufacturer Ford for last month. In Europe, the two most advertised and aggressively introduced Ford models, the new Focus and new C-Max, have managed to secure the American automaker the title of second best selling brand on the Old Continent.

Despite the good performance registered in March in terms of sales (Ford did not specify how many vehicles it actually sold last month), the results for the first quarter of the year show a decrease in consumer appetite of around 4.4 percent compared to the same period of last year, or 411,400 vehicles (the decrease is mostly blamed on the lack of any scrappage schemes in Europe, as compared to last year).

In the main 19 European markets, Ford managed to post a 9.3 percent market share for the past month, mostly thanks to the two models mentioned above. According to Ford's data, the new Focus sold 10,000 units in March, while the C-Max accounted for 14,700 of the total number of units sold in March.

“The all-new Ford Focus is off to an outstanding sales start, and this even before we’ve rolled out the car across all our European markets and with the four-door and wagon derivatives still to come in late April and May,” said Roelant de Waard, vice president, Marketing, Sales and Service, Ford of Europe.

“Add to this the strong momentum of our recently launched Ford C-MAX, plus the freshened S-MAX and Galaxy, and you understand why we are looking ahead with great confidence.”