The Hindu Business Line : Ford to revisit Ikon’s export strategy

Bangalore, June 25 Ford India will revisit its export commitments as its passenger car Ikon’s export, mainly to South Africa, has seen a significant drop.

The car maker will also finetune its strategy towards domestic sales of Ikon, Mr Nigel Wark, Ford India’s Executive Director for Marketing, Sales and Service, told Business Line. Ford exported around 23,000 completely built units (CBUs) of Ikon during 2006-07 but since then has exported only about 2,510 units of Ikons during 2007-08.

It continues to export car kits whose numbers are no longer reported, as per Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers’ (SIAM) summary report.

But before that it wants to make changes in the domestic sales of Ikon which he said witnessed flat sales for sometime now. “We continue to sell Ikons but we are re-examining certain issues regarding their domestic sales,” he said. Ford sells only one model (1.3 lt) of Ikon currently.

Ford India’s Managing Director, Mr Michael Boneham, admitted that rising inflation as well as increase in fuel prices has been an area of concern for Ford. “ We are concerned about how the external economy is doing,” he said.

Ford’s new small car which is being launched at the beginning of 2010 will not compete in the high end segment of the small car. In the run-up to the launch of the small car, Ford is changing its assembly line so that all types of cars can be assembled on the same line. “The B, C as well as D segment cars will be assembled on the same flexi-line,” Mr Boneham said.

He said the small car is currently being developed in Ford’s Australian plant where a team of 20 engineers from India headed by Mr Sundar Sundarrajan is working on the new car.

He said the new car will be manufactured at the Chennai plant whose capacity is being doubled to two lakh cars units.

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