The U.S. auto industry has seen a steady and significant rebound in the past year. J.D. Power and Associates has projected that a total of 12.4 million vehicles were sold in the country last year, up from 11.1 million during 2009.
Recovery in the North American auto market was led in 2010 by the Big Three auto manufacturers – General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC – which captured 45 percent of the U.S. auto market for the first 11 months of the year.
Ford and General Motors saw the most significant improvement throughout 2010.
Ford’s third quarter results included $1.7 billion in net income, a $690 million improvement from the third quarter of 2009. The company had a pre-tax operating profit of $2.1 billion for the quarter, a $1.1 billion improvement from the same quarter one year earlier.
Ford also is hiring 2,000 hourly workers because of new agreements reached at several of its U.S. production plants. It is building a new $500 million engine plant in China to serve the Asian market and will soon begin producing a compact pickup in Thailand.
GM emerged from bankruptcy in mid 2009 and has seen steady improvement since. For the third quarter of 2010, the latest figures available by press deadline, GM posted $34.1 billion in net revenue. GM North America had $2.1 billion in earnings before interest and taxes for the quarter, up from $1.6 billion in the second quarter of the year.
GM also raised more than $20 billion in an initial public offering of stock in November.
Chrysler also emerged from bankruptcy in 2009, when it was acquired by Fiat. The company reported an operating profit of $239 million, a $56 million increase from the second quarter of 2010.
Several industry observers expect that 13 to 14 million cars will be sold in the United States in 2011 – and those same sources expect that the Chinese market will outpace the U.S. for the third consecutive year (by the end of November, there were about 16.4 million cars purchased in China).
Ford analyst George Pipas recently told Bloomberg News he believes there will be almost 13 million cars built in North America next year.
“We have a high degree of confidence that 2011 is going to be a stronger sales year,” he said. “We’re a whole lot better off than we were a year ago.”
