Components maker Visteon Corp., which makes 80 percent of its sales to Ford Motor Co., won’t be hurt by the car maker’s factory closings, provided Ford can keep market share, Visteon Chief Executive Officer Peter Pestillo told Bloomberg News.
“What is really going to impact us, if anything, is Ford’s ability to keep the share it’s got,” Pestillo said in an interview with the news agency. “That is where the potential drama is — not whether they have taken out some production they weren’t using anyway.”
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Ford on Friday announced the closing of five factories, more job cuts taking the total world-wide to 35,000 and the axing of four car model lines to restore profits.
The car maker’s U.S. light-vehicle market share, not counting its Europe-based Jaguar, Volvo car and Land Rover units, fell to 21.9 percent last year from 25.4 percent in 1996, Bloomberg said.
Visteon’s results will depend in part whether Ford can remain competitive in light trucks, Pestillo told Bloomberg. Ford’s share of the light-truck market was steady on 14.4 percent last year while General Motors and Toyota gained share, the report added.
“We happen to have a significantly greater presence on the truck side (of Ford) rather than the car side,” Pestillo said, according to Boomberg. Vehicles with high Visteon content, he added, include the Expedition sport-utility, whose 2003 version includes 30 components and systems, as well as the Lincoln Navigator, F-150 truck and Explorer sport-utility.
Visteon reported a third-quarter loss of $US95 million after Ford reduced North American light-vehicle output by 23 percent, the Bloomberg News report said.
