By Princewill Ekwujuru

Ford Motor Company,  said it recorded 38 percent increase in sale in the first quarter of 2013, compared to 8 percent sale in 2012 in Nigeria.

The company also said that in 2010 to 2011 it recorded over 40 percent rise in sales, a sale if divided between  both years is  about 20 percent per year, an indication that sales was favourable to the company in 2013.

The company through its Regional Sale & Marketing Manager, Sub Sahara Africa Ford Motor Company,  Ozio Tuniz, said this was achieved despite challenges facing the Nigerian auto industry.

According to him, “Our sales performance for the first four months of 2013 has been impressive showing a 38 percent increase in comparison to the first four months of last year. Total sales through April were 1,264 compared to 914 units sold during the same period of 2012.

The growth in sales was led by the high demand for the All-New Ford Ranger; its sales were up 31 percent through April 2013”, he reiterated.

He went further to say “The driving factor for the increase in our sales, so far, can be attributed to stock of more vehicle choices from the new product lineup at our dealerships, our extended warranty programme, as well as, our continued focus on strengthening dealers’ parts and service departments.

Continuing, he said, “The ongoing extended warranty programme tagged the ‘Extended Service Programme, ESP,’ is offering customers free after-sales service of vehicles up to 4-years or 120,000km, whichever comes first through Ford’s major dealers till the end of August, this year. The offer is available on new Ford Focus, Fusion, Taurus, Edge, Escape, Explorer or Expedition, F-Series trucks, and E-Series vans.”

“As you are aware, we recently improved on our parts availability by expanding service of our Middle East Parts Distribution Center (PDC) to dealers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), getting parts to customers in the region more quickly than ever before.