Ford has some of the hottest products on the market these days, like the Bronco, Maverick, and F-150 Lightning, but the company is struggling to fulfill the demand from customers. Supply chain issues and production disruptions prevent the automaker from maintaining a strong sales flow and Ford’s financial report for the first quarter of this year shows the delayed deliveries have a strong negative effect on the results for the first three months.
The manufacturer posts a $34.5 billion revenue, though the brand lost $3.1 billion mainly due to the valuation of its investment in Rivian, which saw Ford losing $5.4 billion. The figure is surely not welcomed by the board of directors as it represents a significant drop from last year’s $3.3 billion profit on $36.2 billion in revenue registered for Q1 of 2021. Ford also reports $2.3 billion in adjusted earnings before interest and taxes.
From January to the end of March, Ford delivered nearly 970,000 vehicles worldwide, down 9 percent from a year ago. However, the company remains positive there will be fewer supply chain issues in the next quarter. In fact, after seeing major delays in January and February, Ford says the manufacturing rates improved significantly in March. The brand’s CEO, Jim Farley, says in a statement that Ford is entering Q2 with an “extremely healthy” order bank.
The automaker ended the first quarter of the calendar year with $29 billion in total company cash and $45 billion in liquidity. Those numbers don’t include Ford’s stake in Rivian, which dropped from $10.6 billion at the end of 2021 to $5.1 billion on March 31.
The strong demand for new Ford products in the United States supports the company in maintaining its full-year outlook – $11.5 billion to $12.5 billion in adjusted EBIT. Also, the adjusted free cash flow for the year is planned to be between $5.5 and $6.5 billion. We will learn whether Ford’s predictions for the second quarter of the year were true when the company releases its Q2 report on July 27.
