European Market Boosts Ford Motor Co’s Sales

(NewsVisual, powered by IntellectSpace) -- Despite a general downturn in the auto industry, Ford Motor Co’s (NYSE: F) announced on Monday its division Ford of Europe increased sales 1.5 percent, bring its total for the 21 markets representing European division to 142,460 units.

This means that Ford’s marketshare in Europe for the month of January was 9.0 percent, the company said.

The following vehicles sold well: the Focus sold 37,000 units; the Mondeo leapt 50 percent to sell 16,800 units; the Fiesta sold 29,380 units; and the C-MAX sold 10.400 units.

“While 2008 is forecast to be a challenging year for the European industry, we expect our sales momentum to continue,” said Vice President for Ford of Europe Stephen Odell in the company’s statement.

Odell suggested that he expects the company’s sale to continue to trend upwards when he added the following comments:

“Our confidence is based on the strength of our current range and on the exciting new products we plan to introduce in 2008. The stylish new Focus goes on sale shortly, to be followed by the Kuga, which will set a new benchmark in the crossover segment.”

NewsVisual decided to create an IntellectSpace Knowledge Map in order to illustrate the business connections of Ford’s Board of Directors as a method for assessing their knowledge of business and for determining whether their experience qualifies them to make sound sales projections.

The Knowledge Map shows that the most noteworthy is Director John L Thornton is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Brookings Institution, as well as a Director for News Corp, Intel Inc, the China Netcom Group Corp Ltd, and the Industrial Commercial Bank of China Ltd.

The following Directors are also noteworthy for their business connections:

Director Ellen R Marram serves on the boards of The New York Times Co, Cadbury Schweppes Plc, and Eli Lilly; Director Stephen G Butler serves on the boards of Cooper Industries Ltd and ConAgra Foods Inc; and Director Richard A Manoogian is also the CEO/Chairman of Masco Corp.

(Note: the information contained and presented in Knowledge Maps is public information from the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States of America).

Click here or copy this link into your Internet Explorer browser for an interactive version of this IntellectSpace Knowledge Map: http://nv.intellectspace.com/ispace/GuestMonitor.aspx?id=4034560d-d126-41bb-8b30-17ac4cc4b72f