26 May Ford advierte sobre un exceso de producción en el sector automovilístico
El Financial Times explica que el jefe ejecutivo de Ford, Alan Mulally, considera que el cierre de varias fábricas durante el año pasado no es suficiente para hacer frente al exceso de producción en el sector automovilístico.
Fuente: Financial Times. Alan Mulally, chief executive of Ford, has warned that European carmakers need to cut back further the numbers of cars they can build as excess capacity on the continent remains at dangerous levels.
Idle production lines and underproductive factories have plunged almost all of Europe’s major carmakers into billion-dollar losses in recent years after annual sales on the continent fell by about 4m cars between 2007 and 2013.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Mulally said that the closure of a handful of European factories over the past year was not enough to bring capacity down to a sustainable level.
Car sales fell to a two-decade low in 2013 as losses from the continent dragged down global earnings for the world’s biggest carmakers. Although sales have risen in every month so far this year, Mr Mulally cautioned that the positive growth was masking deeper problems that needed to be fixed.
“It is not enough. I think that companies need to match their production to demand,” said Mr Mulally, who will step down as CEO on July 1. “If you do not match production to the real demand, it is going to be exacerbated on the way down, because then it all gets worse.”
Car sales in Europe rose 7.4 per cent during the first four months of this year, but analysts say that heavy levels of discounting are propping up sluggish real demand in a region with tepid economic growth, high unemployment and low consumer confidence.
Because of their high fixed costs, car factories need to be running at about 70 per cent of their designed capacity to be profitable.
“Is there still overcapacity? Yes. The extra factories are clearly making the industry uncompetitive in Europe,” said Stefano Aversa, managing director of consultancy AlixPartners. “For the volume manufacturers building in Europe, for Europe, utilisation is still too low, and they are suffering,” Mr Aversa added.
Ford, Europe’s second biggest selling car brand, lost $1.6bn in Europe last year, its third consecutive annual loss from the region. General Motors’ European division lost $844m last year and $1.9bn in 2012.
Ford, which has announced the closure of two factories over the past two years, is “fully on track” to meet its target of being profitable in Europe next year, Mr Mulally added, ahead of US rivals GM and Fiat-Chrysler.
Carmakers, particularly national champions such as France’s Renault and PSA Peugeot Citroën and Italy’s Fiat, have come under significant pressure from governments not to close factories because of their high number of employees. The automotive industry employs 3m people in the EU, according to industry trade body ACEA, equivalent to 5.3 per cent of all jobs in the trading block.