Europe may be getting excited for next week's prestigious Paris Motor Show, but the region's auto market hasn't been doing too well.
"The outlook for Europe on the whole is darkening," said Stefan Bratzel, director of the Center of Automotive Management at the University of Applied Sciences in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany, as quoted by Bloomberg News.
Auto sales have slowed and are expected to keep declining in the last two quarters of the year. The market dropped to a two-decade low in 2013, and car deliveries are forecast to fall 0.3 percent in the last quarter of 2014, Bloomberg News reported.
Carmakers at the upcoming Paris Motor Show are under pressure as they show off new technology and flashy debuts like the 2015 Bentley Mulsanne slated to launch at the event.
European auto companies aren't the only ones struggling. On Monday, Ford said that company profits will be lower than expected for 2014 due to multiple hits from recalls and struggling markets in South America and Russia, the Detroit News reported.
Ford originally aimed to bring in $7 billion to $8 billion in pretax profits this year; however, the automaker now expects to make $6 billion in pretax profits. Around $1 billion in warranty costs from recalls will be subtracted.
A recall announced last week that affects around 850,000 vehicles with faulty restraint systems will likely result in a $500 million charge.
Despite the dour news, the Dearborn, Mich.-based carmaker has high hopes for the rest of the decade, predicting that its sales will increase by as much as 55 percent. Ford plans to introduce 16 new vehicles worldwide next year.
"We know we have challenges in 2014," CEO Mark Fields told investors, as quoted by the News. "But when we look at where we are in the cycle, we feel good about where we are in the cycle."
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