Tristan, I probably underestimated the damage.
I showed how probably 12-20 million people were boycott supporters.
I used the low-end of that, 12 million.
I suggested that IF only 1% had bought another vehicle instead of a Ford, the damage would be almost $1 billion. I think it’s probably more.
About 16 million vehicles are sold per year in the US — about 32 million were sold in the 2 years of the boycott.
120,000 lost sales in 2 years is only a 0.375% loss of market share (120,000 divided by 32 million).
Ford’s market share has plunged over 1% (from 17.4% in 2005 to about 16.0% or a bit higher now–let’s split the diff and call it 1.2%. I’d have to check to verify, but I’m pretty sure its sales have fallen faster as a percentage of its 2005 market share than the other Detroit companies facing the same problems.
So AFA’s boycott, to do the damage claimed would have been about 31% of the reason for Ford’s market-share loss (0.375% divided by about 1.2%). There’s a reasonable chance that it’s really half.
As to the money damage, I think if Ford allowed us to dig deep enough, which they never will, we’d find that the company lost a disproportionate share of its truck sales in the South and West than it did in the NE and Midwest, which would be a red flag that the company took a bit hit from boycotters on the vehicles that make the most money, as you can see from the margin chart.
