Roy Cokayne
INCREASED sales of Ford vehicles in the domestic market, driven in particular by sales of the Ford Ranger, has resulted in the multimillion-rand investments in dealerships by the Ford Motor Company of South Africa’s dealer network.
Mark Kaufman, the vice-president marketing, sales and service at the Ford Motor Company of Southern Africa, said yesterday the growth in Ford sales in South Africa had resulted in quite an effort to expand the dealership network.
Kaufman said Ford had a total of 127 dealers and R154 million was invested in facilities in the dealer network last year compared to R93.3m in 2013. He said 57 dealership facilities were upgraded last year and the upgrading of a further more than 40 dealerships at a cost of about R120m were under way this year.
Kaufman said these investments in facilities were in some instances not made by the dealers themselves but by developers who continued to own the dealership building rented by the dealership.
These investments were indicative of the confidence Ford dealers had in the product line-up and sustainability of Ford’s sales growth.
“Dealers are entrepreneurs within local communities, and if there wasn’t the confidence that the sales results were here to stay, that is a tough sell to make these big investments in the dealership.
“Obviously at this point the results, the growth and the consistency in the product line-up, have made our dealers confident in Ford and in investing going forward,” he said.
Kaufman said the Ford Motor Company of Southern Africa achieved a record market share of 16.3 percent last month and had a market share of 13.9 percent year to date.
He said the year-to-date market share was off a base of about 7 879 units from 2012, which meant it had almost doubled its sales in a period of about two years. This had resulted in great opportunities but also challenges. More service bay capacity and more throughput was needed in the dealer network. He added that with total sales of 6 483 units last month, Ford increased its volumes by 24.5 percent compared to April last year.
Kaufman said the locally assembled Ranger was the top seller in the light commercial vehicle segment with 3 095 sales, the second time it took the top spot for light commercial vehicle sales and total industry sales.
Strong demand for the Ford Ranger had resulted in sales of the model increasing by 71.6 percent year on year and 54 percent year to date.
Kaufman said Ford would be launching 10 new products in South Africa this year following the 24 new product launches last year. The model launches this year included several important new models such as the B-Max, Focus ST, all-new Everest, new Ranger and the iconic Mustang.