Ford shares climb again to hit a 20-year high on Wednesday

Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) on Wednesday said its 2021 sales came in 6.8% down on a year-over-year basis. Shares fell 3.0% initially but climbed back to a 20-year high of $24.90 later on.  

Sales picked up in the fourth quarter

Ford attributed much of the weakness to the effects of chip shortage in the first three quarters. Supply constraints, however, eased for the legacy automaker in Q4, with sales up 26.8% sequentially versus a 3.0% decline noted in the industry at large.

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Ford’s inventory grew by 22,000 vehicles in December to close the year with 247,000 units in stock. It continued to stand at the third spot on the list of the largest car manufacturers by sales in the United States, after GM and Toyota.

The Detroit automaker sold 173,740 vehicles last month in the U.S., down 17.1% from December of 2020. Truck and SUV sales were down 15.5% and 11.1%, respectively, offset by a massive 121.1% increase in sales of electric vehicles.

Ford is committed to winning the EV space

In terms of EV sales in the United States, Ford was next only to Tesla in 2021. Its electric vehicles sales, the carmaker added, grew 36% faster than the overall industry.

Ford is investing heavily in electric vehicles to set itself up as a serious competition to Tesla in the coming years. A day earlier, it announced plans of doubling production capacity for its upcoming all-electric pickup truck, the F-150 Lightning, to 150,000 by mid-2023.

According to Jim Cramer, Ford is ahead of Tesla in terms of electric pickup truck, and that “sky is the limit for Ford this year’. Thanks to a recent surge in the stock price, its market cap is now larger than General Motors.