The world’s largest auto maker Ford logged a decline in profits by 40% at the end of the first quarter. According to the released data, Ford’s first-quarter net income plummeted 39% to $989 million. The experts blame severe weather that hit the USA this winter for that. As the result, the natural disaster put a drag on consumer activity. For instance, last year statistics show a 1.6 billion profit. Thus, in the first quarter of 2013, the company earned $0.40 per share, while for the first three months of 2014, it gained only $0.24 apiece. Excluding some one-time factors, the profit totaled a bit more than $0.25 per share compared to consensus of $0.31 a share. Meanwhile, the quarterly revenue topped median forecasts of $35.54 billion. The final data reveals that the revenue rose from $35.6 billion to $35.9 billion. The accounting department said that this year the company sold 1.589 million cars, while last year it sold 1.497 million units. Considering the status of the company, its shareholders do not want to hear weak excuses such as bad weather for the loss of profit. For this reason, Ford claimed that company’s operation was dragged down by $400 million in charge for warranty and repair costs and $100 million in weather-related charges in North America.
