Ford Motor on Tuesday posted second-quarter profit that handily beat expectations, and its chief executive announced the giant is going to act “like a startup” innovator to better compete.
The Dearborn, Mich., company posted net quarterly profit of $1.89 billion, or 47 cents per share. Analysts estimated profit of 37 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters.
Operating profit totaled nearly $2.6 billion in North America, a company record for any quarter. Ford‘s traditional business generated the company’s highest automotive profit since 2000, based on the strength of its core pickup truck and sport-utility vehicle business in the North American market.
For the second half of 2015, Ford expects to generate more than the $4.3 billion in first-half operating profit, as new launches increase sales and command better prices. Ford maintained its 2015 operating profit forecast of between $8.5 billion and $9.5 billion.
“We are really pushing ourselves to think, to act, and disrupt like a startup company,” Ford CEO Mark Fields said in a conference call with analysts. The industry is experiencing a “period of change and disruption” that includes car-sharing, autonomous vehicles, and connected cars. Ford has been conducting more than two dozen experiments to determine mobility needs of the globe’s consumers in coming decades, Fields said.
Barclays analyst Brian Johnson told Reuters that it was too early to determine the success of Ford’s efforts to adapt to a changing industry, though it was “very encouraging that (Fields) and (Executive Chairman) Bill Ford are thinking about this type of thing.”
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