Ford Focus ranked as world’s top-selling car; Toyota Corolla second
An American automaker has the top-selling car in the world -- the Ford Focus.
Research firm R.L. Polk & Co. said Ford Motor Co. sold 1,020,410 Focus models worldwide last year. About a quarter of the sales were in the U.S.
The Focus beat out the second-best seller -- Toyota’s Corolla with sales of 872,774 -- by a wide margin.
Including the F-series truck and Fiesta compact car, Ford had three of the 10 top-selling vehicles internationally, the firm reported.
“Ford has been among the leaders in Europe for a long time and the Focus and the Fiesta have traditionally done well there,” said Tom Libby, an analyst at Polk. “A resurgence in the U.S. with passenger cars has helped Ford too.”
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Thanks almost exclusively to sales in the U.S. and Canada, Ford’s F-series truck was the third-best seller internationally and the only truck on the list.
“The global ranking of F-Series really shows our strong position in this segment not just in the U.S., but also how F-Series compares on a global scale, relative to a number of vehicles that sell in every region of the world,” said Erich Merkle, Ford’s sales analyst.
The Zhiguang from Chinese automaker Wuling was the fourth-most-popular auto globally, with sales of 768,870. It is a van that sells mostly in China.
The Toyota Camry, the best-selling passenger car in America, ranked fifth globally, with sales of 729,793.
The Fiesta, a small compact was sixth with sales of 723,130. Not even 10% of that was in the U.S.
The Volkswagen Golf was seventh with sales of 699,148. Chevrolet’s Cruze was eighth with sales of 661,325.
Honda had the final two cars on the list; both are also big sellers in the U.S. The Civic was ninth at 651,259 and the CR-V was 10th with sales of 624,982.
“Ford and GM, VW and Toyota are the global major players,” Libby said. “They each have foundations in the three major regions, Asia, Europe and the Americas.”
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