Embattled auto-maker Ford Motor Co posted its best financial results in years on Wednesday and boosted its full-year earnings guidance, pushing its shares up more than 10 percent in early trading.
The robust first-quarter performance, buoyed by surprisingly strong gains in Ford's automotive business, comes as it struggles against cut-throat competition and a declining US market share.
Ford said its net earnings more than doubled to $1.95 billion, or 94 cents a share, from $896 million, or 45 cents a share, a year earlier.
Excluding special items, Ford, which said it slashed automotive costs in the quarter by about $600 million, earned 96 cents a share.
Ford shares surged to their highest in nearly three months on the New York Stock Exchange, where they were the morning's No 2 percentage gainer. The stock was up $1.45 at $15.01 in its biggest one-day percentage rise in a year.
The second-largest US auto-maker, led by family scion Bill Ford Jr., is also continuing a massive restructuring program aimed at ensuring annual pre-tax profits of $7 billion by mid-decade.
"This is the best quarter we have achieved since we began our back-to-basics efforts more than two years ago," Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Ford said in a statement. "It clearly demonstrates our plan is working and building momentum," he said.
Ford's previously announced cost-cutting target was more than $500 million for all of 2004.
Wall Street analysts on average were expecting first-quarter earnings of 44 cents per share, according to Reuters Research, a division of Reuters Group Plc.
Ford also said it was raising its full-year earnings forecast from a range of $1.20 to $1.30 per share to between $1.50 and $1.60 a share. Ford's market share in the United States fell by 1.2 percentage points in the first quarter and its US sales were off 1.3 percent.
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