Ford Leads Largest Automakers’ $172bn Market Cap Plunge

The combined market capitalisation of the world’s five largest automakers has halved year-to-date, stumbling by $172 billion from $358 billion in January 2023 to $182 billion last week.

The five largest automakers are Toyota Motor Corp, Volkswagen AG, Mercedes Benz Group, Ford Motor Co., and Honda Motor Co. Ltd.

Of the five, data by AugustaFreePress.com show that Ford Motor Co. suffered the biggest market cap drop this year. The market cap of the US car manufacturer which stood at $87.2bn in January has plunged by 44 percent, falling to $48.4bn last week.

Honda Motor Co. lost $11.6bn or 23% of its market cap in ten months.

Their woes were deepened by supply chain bottlenecks, record inflation, and shutdowns at Chinese factories because of COVID-19 restrictions, causing colossal revenue and market cap drops.

The world’s largest automobile manufacturer according to the Fortune 500 list, the Volkswagen Group, saw its deliveries drop in every major region this year, with Europe hardest hit. Although deliveries rose by 10 percent in the third quarter as supply chain troubles eased, they remained down 12.9 percent overall this year at just over 6 million vehicles.

YCharts data shows the market cap of the German-based automaker dropped by 36 percent year-to-date, falling from $102bn to $64.4bn last week.

As the second-largest automaker globally, Toyota Motor Corp has lost $74bn or 28 percent of its stock value since January. Last week, Toyota’s market cap stood at $182bn, down from $256bn ten months ago.

Mercedes Benz Group follows with a 27 percent year-to-date drop and a $22.5bn wiped off its market cap.

The huge drop in stock value of the world’s largest automakers comes as the entire automotive industry continues struggling as a whole.

Statista survey predicted global car sales revenues drop by $200bn year-over-year to $1.89 trillion in 2022 and remain around that value next year.

This steep revenue drop brought the entire market eight years back, below 2014 levels, when the automotive industry made roughly $1.99trn from car sales.

Statistics show global unit sales are also at their lowest point in years. Statista expects global car sales to hit 67.3 million this year, 6.5 million units less than in 2021 and 2.6 million below 2013 sales figures.