Ford kills Mercury
The Mercury Milan
Ford has announced that it is shutting its 71-year-old Mercury brand.
The demise of the premium brand comes as no surprise as it had lost a majority of its sales in recent years and become a financial burden on Ford.
While Ford has been growing in the last few years, Mercury’s sales have only been heading south. The reasons are plenty and include the lack of new models, product differentiation and overlap with Ford’s Lincoln brand.
The carmaker will stop production of Mercury vehicles by end 2010 and will now focus more on growing the Lincoln brand.
Pankaj
June 7, 2010 at 5:36 am
Despite of being the only American car maker to avoid a government funded bail out, Ford has decided to kill one of it’s luxury brands. Is this prudent strategy? One could debate on that.
Mercury was a key brand in Ford’s portfolio few years back and now is facing the axe. Creating car brands in a long and expensive process and nurturing them is painstakingly difficult.
Over th eyears, Mercury was starved of new products and as a result experienced negative sales in its key market – US of A over the years. End of the tunnel is finally here.
In principle, I think axing Mercury is a battle lost.