“an important early step toward eventually being the true EV leader.”
Ford’s share price has come under pressure despite the company posting a highly positive set of full-year and fourth quarter financial results.
Ford shares traded down by as much as 5% yesterday in the hours after its results were posted.
Ford posted full year net income of $17.9 billion and said company adjusted EBIT of $10.0 billion was midpoint of its $9.6 billion to $10.6 billion guidance range (after reclassifying the Q1 Rivian stake IPO gain).
Q4 results included revenue of $37.7 billion, net income of $12.3 billion and adjusted EBIT of $2.0 billion.
Ford described the operating results as ‘solid’ despite persistent supply chain disruptions.
“Financial performance is obviously critical,” said President and CEO Jim Farley. “We’re also proud that customers see how Ford is taking EVs mainstream, and have already ordered or reserved more than 275,000 all-electric Mustang Mach-E SUVs, F-150 Lightning pickups and E-Transit commercial vehicles – and we’re breaking constraints to deliver every one of them as fast as we can.”
“Our team did a fantastic job working with partners to maximize component availability,” said John Lawler, Ford’s CFO. “We allocated those volumes to in-demand new vehicles like the Bronco (SUV) and Maverick (small pickup), profitable models like F-Series (trucks) and Transit, and customer orders.”
Ford said it worked with LG Energy Solution to improve battery supply for the Mustang Mach-E, expanding capacity three times over the past 10 months. Benefits from those increases will continue to accrue, it said – to more than double originally contracted volumes by 2023.
Meanwhile, Lawler said, there were full year benefits from strong mix and net pricing, as well as lower warranty costs, which more than offset the effects of the production losses and higher commodity costs. As a result, Ford said automotive EBIT of $7.4 billion and margin of 5.9% for 2021 were both significantly higher than in 2020.
Ford ended the quarter with more than $36 billion in cash and $52 billion in liquidity. Both measures included the company’s investment in Rivian, which was valued at $10.6 billion at the end of 2021. At the close of trading on February 2nd, the value was $6.6 billion.