Ford Motor Co. netted 242,618 sales in Europe in the second quarter, for a 43.7 percent increase over the same period last year.
Meanwhile, Ford’s European sales of more than 500,000 vehicles through the first half of the year represent a 22.6 percent improvement over last year, when the onset of the coronavirus pandemic led to widespread lockdowns.
Ford captured 6.2 percent of the Europe market in the second quarter. That’s down 0.9 percentage points from the second quarter of 2020. Its share of the retail market stood at 5.8 percent in Q2.
In terms of sales volumes in the second quarter, Ford’s top European markets were Britain, Germany, Italy, France, and Spain.
Bright spots for the automaker included sales of the Ford Puma crossover, the Kuga SUV, and its commercial Transit vans. The Transit Custom van was the best-selling vehicle overall in the United Kingdom, Ford reported.
And the Ford Ranger pickup truck had a record quarter with nearly 16,000 sales.
Ford operates a strong commercial vehicle business in Europe. The company noted that it once again was the leading commercial vehicle brand in the market for the first half of the year and in the second quarter.
And amid tightening environmental regulations in Europe and a more aggressive electric vehicle push by Ford, the automaker reported that 46 percent of its passenger vehicle sales in the second quarter were electrified.
The automaker reported that the plug-in hybrid version of the Kuga so far is Europe’s best-selling PHEV of the year and that half of Kuga sales are for the PHEV version.
Ford’s presence in Europe spans Austria, Belgium, Britain, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey.
Meanwhile, Ford earlier this month reported that its U.S. sales were up 9.5 percent in the second quarter, while its sales in China were down 3.6 percent over the same period.
