Ford Motor Co., the second-largest U.S. automaker, said the $2.55 billion first-quarter profit it reported yesterday may be the company’s biggest this year as costs increase, Bloomberg reported..

Ford will face $4 billion in higher expenses for commodities, new-product development, engineering, manufacturing and advertising this year. The company also said earnings from its Ford Credit finance unit will be $1.1 billion lower because of changes in lease depreciation and credit-loss reserves.

“There are factors that you have to take into account as you get to the latter part of the year that will possibly result in our profits being lower than the first quarter,” Chief Financial Officer Lewis Booth said Tuesday in an interview. “There are factors that we think will perhaps make the first quarter look like a very good quarter.”

Net income rose 22 percent from $2.09 billion a year earlier as fuel-efficient new models won higher prices, Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford said yesterday in a statement. Excluding some items, profit was 62 cents a share, beating the 50-cent average of 14 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sales rose 4.7 percent to $33.1 billion.

The net income marks Ford’s most profitable first quarter since a $17.6 billion net income in 1998 that included a $16 billion gain from the spinoff of the First Associates Capital Corp. consumer finance unit.