DETROIT – Ford Motor’s U.S. automobile gross sales confirmed optimistic indicators of restoration from an ongoing scarcity of semiconductor chips that is wreaked havoc on the worldwide automotive business this 12 months.

The Detroit automaker on Wednesday reported gross sales of 175,918 new automobiles in October, down by 4% from a 12 months in the past, however are a far narrower loss than in prior months. The gross sales mark Ford’s greatest gross sales by quantity since April and the primary time since Might that the corporate hasn’t reported a double-digital month-to-month loss in contrast with 2020.

“Via June of this 12 months, Ford retail gross sales have been up 10.7%. With constrained inventories and document flip charges within the second quarter, we have now been working carefully with our sellers gathering retail orders, that are up 16-fold over final 12 months,” mentioned Andrew Frick, Ford vice chairman of U.S. and Canada gross sales.

In one other optimistic observe, Ford mentioned automobile inventories, which have been at document lows because of the chip scarcity, elevated by 7,000 items from a month earlier to 243,000 automobiles and vans.

Ford’s gross sales final month outpaced the business, in response to Cox Automotive. The auto analysis firm on Wednesday estimated new U.S. automobile gross sales have been down by about 21% in contrast with October 2020. That is higher than Cox’s preliminary forecast of a 30% decline.

“The market continues to be experiencing very low stock and correspondingly low incentives, however the worst is probably going behind us,” Cox mentioned in a launch.

Ford is amongst a handful of automakers to report new month-to-month automobile gross sales. Others equivalent to Basic Motors and Stellantis (previously Fiat Chrysler) solely report quarterly gross sales.

Ford’s October gross sales come every week after the corporate practically doubled Wall Road’s earnings expectations for the third quarter and raised its full-year adjusted earnings steerage to between $10.5 billion and $11.5 billion, up from between $9 billion and $10 billion. 

Nonetheless, Ford is not within the clear relating to its provide of semiconductor chips simply but. CFO John Lawler final week mentioned the corporate expects the chip scarcity to proceed into subsequent 12 months and probably, to a far lesser extent, into 2023.

Lawler mentioned Ford expects a ten% enhance in wholesale automobile volumes in 2022 in contrast with this 12 months, because the semiconductor scarcity continues to influence the enterprise.