Ford Motor Co. said on Tuesday that its profit declined by 19 percent in the second quarter from a year ago resulting from lower car production and intense competition in North America.

Ford, the second largest automaker in the United States, reported that it earned 946 million dollars in the April-June period compared with a profit of 1.2 billion dollars in the same quarter of last year.

On a worldwide basis, pretax loss of Ford's automotive business swung to a 245 million dollars in the second quarter from a profit of 97 million dollars a year ago. In the key North American market, Ford reported a pretax loss of 907 million dollars, down by 1.4 billion dollars from a 454-million-dollar pretax profit a year ago.

Ford's finance division, Ford Motor Credit Co., contributed heavily to the bottom line, as it has in numerous recent quarters. On a pretax basis, Ford Motor Credit earned 1.2 billion dollars in the second quarter, but down from 1.4 billion a year ago.

Revenue in the second quarter increased to 44.5 billion dollars from 42.9 billion dollars a year ago. Automotive sales in the quarter rose to 38.7 billion dollars from 36.7 billion dollars in the same period of last year.

For the first half of the year, Ford earned 2.16 billion dollars, down from 3.12 billion dollars in the first six months of last year. Automotive revenue for the first six months increased to 78 billion dollars from 75.5 billion dollars in the first half of 2004.

Source: Xinhua