Ford is in a tough spot. They make popular trucks and large vehicles, but the small vehicle market is hard to enter. Kia makes some decent small cars with small price
tags, and Honda and Toyota's legendary reliability is available for not too much more. You also have Mazda and Hyundai making cars that span the price range. Lots of coverage here, hard to find an entry point for Ford.
I was looking for a small, inexpensive, reliable car when I bought my Corolla. Honestly, it feels kinda big. I would have bought a Yaris or Fit, but I didn't see any good condition ones near me with manual transmissions. I was intrigued by the small cars made by Chevy in theory, but their well known history of quality problems wouldn't let me consider them. Not a lot of options in the US for truly compact cars. It's a shame!
My fiance had one of the notorious Ford Fiestas that had the terrible transmissions. Three warranty rebuilds on the same transmission with less than 50k miles on a new car. She traded it in for a Honda. People looking for small cars are usually driven by budget and reliability concerns. Ford doesn't look very attractive compared to it's peers.
Confirmation bias alert. I was behind a Chevy Equinox in traffic yesterday that was burning oil like no tomorrow. Steady stream of blue/white smoke while idling and huge belches when it started forward. Couldn't have been more than 5-7 years old, by appearance. Imagine paying 20k for that heap of crap!