Businessweek

Ford Motor Company engages in producing and selling automobiles. The company also engages in financing vehicles. Sectors The company operates through two sectors, Automotive and Financial Services. Automotive This sector’s vehicle brands include Ford and Lincoln. This sector’s business is divided into four segments, including Ford North America, Ford South America, Ford Europe, and Ford Asia Pacific Africa. Ford North America: This segment primarily includes the sale of Ford- and Lincoln-brand vehicles, service parts, and accessories in North America (the United States, Canada, and Mexico). Ford South America: This segment primarily includes the sale of Ford-brand vehicles, service parts, and accessories in South America. This segment serves six markets in South America, such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. Ford Europe: This segment primarily includes the sale of Ford-brand vehicles, components, service parts, and accessories in Europe, Turkey, and Russia. This segment serves 19 markets in Europe, such as Austria, Belgium, Britain, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. Ford Asia Pacific Africa: This segment primarily includes the sale of Ford-brand vehicles, service parts, and accessories in the Asia Pacific region and South Africa. This segment’s principal markets include ASEAN (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam), Australia, China, India, and South Africa. The company’s vehicles, parts, and accessories are marketed through retail dealers in North America, and through distributors and dealers outside of North America (collectively, ‘dealerships’). In addition to the products it sells to its dealerships for retail sale, the company sells vehicles to its dealerships for sale to fleet customers, including commercial fleet customers, daily rental car companies, and governments. It also sells parts and accessories, primarily to its dealerships (which in turn sell these products to retail customers) and to authorized parts distributors (which in turn primarily sell these products to retailers). Through the company’s dealerships, it also offers extended service contracts to retail customers. Intellectual Property: The company has approximately 20,600 active patents and pending patent applications worldwide, with an average age for patents in its active patent portfolio of just under 5 ½ years. Financial Services This sector includes Ford Motor Credit Company LLC (Ford Credit), which offers various automotive financing products to and through automotive dealers worldwide. Ford Credit’s business consists of financing the company’s vehicles and supporting its dealers. Ford Credit has a portfolio of finance receivables and leases, which it classifies into two segments, Consumer and Non-Consumer. Finance receivables and leases in the Consumer segment relate to products offered to individuals and to businesses that finance the acquisition of vehicles from dealers for personal and commercial use. The financing products include retail installment sale contracts for new and used vehicles, and leases for new vehicles to retail customers, government entities, daily rental car companies, and fleet customers. Finance receivables in the Non-Consumer segment relate primarily to products offered to automotive dealers, including loans to finance the purchase of vehicle inventory (wholesale financing), for improvements to dealership facilities, for working capital, and for purchase of dealership real estate. Ford Credit also purchases receivables generated by the company and its subsidiaries, primarily in connection with the sale of parts and accessories. Ford Credit does business in the United States and Canada through regional business centers. Outside of the United States, FCE Bank plc (FCE) is Ford Credit's major operation; Europe is FCE's primary market. Within Europe, FCE's primary markets include Germany and the United Kingdom. FCE, through its Worldwide Trade Financing division, also provides financing to dealers. Engineering, Research, and Development The company’s engineering, research, and development expenses were $5.5 billion for 2012. Significant Events In April 2013, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Company have signed an agreement under which both companies would jointly develop a new generation of advanced nine- and 10-speed automatic transmissions. Initial design and engineering work is already under way. History Ford Motor Company was founded in 1903.