Ford Motors and India
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In brief
The Times of India, August 3, 2015
Pankaj Doval
Exports to power Ford's India growth strategy
The company is in India since around 1995 and has failed to make deeper inroads.It has been planning products that appeal both to the domestic market as well as key export countries.
US car major Ford has targeted to export over 2 lakh cars from India by 2020 as its plan focus on making the country a hub for compacts, mini sedans and small SUVs. The focus has been to export half of the cars it makes in India by 2020 -at 2.2 lakh vehicles -and sell them across Europe, Latin America and Africa.
Targeting a larger pool of countries provides the company benefit of economies of scale and bring down its production costs, making the vehicles highly competitive, India president and MD Nigel Harris has said.
“These would be global B platform vehicles,“ Harris told TOI as the company now prepares to drive in a new en try sedan -Figo Aspire -into the Indian market.
The company expects to have a production capacity of 4.4 lakh vehicles by 2020 out of which half of the cars have to be sold overseas in markets across Europe, Africa, Middle-East and Asia-Pacific.
The sub 4-metre Aspire has been designed with a special focus on the needs of Indian customers. But it debuts in one of the most intensely-competitive segment of the market, after the compact cars. Maruti Suzuki's Dzire dominates this category with average monthly sales of around 16,000 units, and other challengers are models such as Honda Amaze, Hyundai Xcent and Tata Zest. The company’s success had managed with the entry of the Figo hatchback in 2010 and the Eco Sport compact SUV in 2013.
