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DETROIT – The Ford F-Series continued its decadeslong U.S. sales dominance in 2022 despite ongoing parts and supply chain problems, the company said Tuesday.
Ford Motor reported sales of its F-Series, which includes the F-150 pickup and its larger siblings, surpassed 640,000 trucks last year – making it America’s bestselling truck for 46 consecutive years and bestselling vehicle for 41 years.
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The 2022 sales make for an average of at least one F-Series Truck sold every 49 seconds last year, Ford said.
Despite topping the sales charts, F-Series sales are expected to come in lower than in recent years. Sales of the truck were off nearly 13% through November compared with a year earlier, however Ford said last month’s sales are anticipated to be the best of 2022 for the F-Series.
Ford sold 726,004 F-Series trucks in 2021, which was a 7.8% decline from more than 787,400 vehicles in 2020. Before the coronavirus pandemic, the company had been selling about 900,000 of the trucks annually.
Ford has attempted to prioritize production of the F-Series, including its new electric F-150 Lightning, throughout rolling shutdowns of plants due to the parts shortage in recent years. The company has even been partially building vehicles to complete them at a later date to keep production going.
There are fears on Wall Street that the most profitable days for automakers such as Ford may be behind them amid higher interest rates, falling used vehicle prices and a normalization of sales mix away from fully loaded models.
Wells Fargo analyst Colin Langan highlighted such challenges — and a renewed emphasis on Ford’s monthly sales reports — in a note to investors on Tuesday citing negative catalysts for the automaker.
Ford is set to report its total year-end sales on Thursday, a day after other major automakers are expected to release results.
While the F-Series nameplate has led the sales charts for decades, Ford has not been the bestselling automaker of full-size pickup trucks in recent years. That title has gone to General Motors, which sells two full-size pickups.
GM sells the higher-priced GMC Sierra alongside the Chevy Silverado. Combined sales of both pickups outnumbered Ford and other rivals through the third quarter.
GM spokesman Jim Cain downplayed the F-Series rankings, saying the company is well positioned to capture full-size truck sales leadership for a third consecutive year.
“We count trucks the old-fashioned way, one at a time, and by that measure we’re the clear leader and have been for a while,” he said.