Ford Motor Co. beat second-quarter earning projections by earning $1.2 billion worldwide thanks to surging vehicles sales in China and Ram-tough pickup truck sales in America.
Industry-wide sales of pickups in the US rose by a staggering 22 percent in the first half of 2013. Ford, being the maker of the top-selling ride in America, the F-Series pickup truck, harvested great gobs of bounty from this rising tide. The company-that-Henry-built made a profit of $2.3 billion in North America during the just closed quarter, while in Asia it took in $177 million, which is its best performance ever in the Eastern continent. The strong numbers in the US and Asia more than made up for the decidedly European-style showing it had in Europe by losing $348 million in the second quarter. The loss was a $56 million improvement over what Ford lost in Europe in the second quarter of 2012.