With the change of guard at Ford India’s headquarters, there is a lot at stake for the American major which has been struggling to capture any significant share in India.
Mr. Joginder Singh, who would take over the current MD Michael Boneham from tomorrow, is expected to bring in a lot of new ideas, strategies and freshness to their Indian operations.
As a show of aggression, Ford would be launching as many as 8 new models in the Indian market in a short span of 3 years. And all the upcoming models are expected to be mainstream volume-targeted ones which would help Ford capture a sizeable chunk of Indian market which they have failed to do so in the last 17 years of their presence here.
The only big hit for them so far has been the immensely Value For Money, Figo! And the next big thing expected is the upcoming C-SUV (compact SUV) EcoSport. EcoSport, apart from its positives and negatives, would bring with it a lot of hope for Ford.
Ford is also planning to make India as an export hub which could serve and ship its products to as many as 50 countries. Currently, Ford exports Figo to 35 countries and plans to take this tally to 50 in due coarse of time. The other major contributor is expected to be EcoSport which would be launched early 2013 and would also be shipped from India.
Apart from its Chennai facility, Ford is also developing another $1 billion manufacturing plant in Gujarat which is expected to be operational by 2014. Ford plans to export as much as 40 percent of the 6 lakh plus engines that it would have a capacity to develop.
Ford also plans to take their current service points to 500 from the current 250 by 2015. As an aggregate of all these factors, Ford is confident that they would be able to increase their market share which currently stands at around 3 percent only.
Good bit that India is becoming a hot spot for many international manufacturers. We hope Ford prices EcoSport well and it is a market roaring success.
Keep Abreast | Like us on FaceBook | Subscribe to our Free Newsletter
Source: Economic Times
