Ford to double sales this year

Riding on the initial success of its mid-size sedan Fiesta, Ford India aims to double its sales this financial year to 50,000 units.

The Fiesta accounts for almost half of Ford India's sales and the company claims that it tops the mid-size car segment in 17 of the 40 top markets in the country.

While Ford has no immediate plans to enter the compact car segment, the largest in the country, but will continue concentrating on mid size segment only.

It has already achieved the last year target of 25,000 units in June 2006.

Banking on the increasing consumer preference towards this segment, it plans to boost sales by adopting alternative fuels and will be launching a CNG version of its entry level Ikon 1.3 litre model. Its largest selling model, the Fiesta will be coming with a new diesel ESI engine in another two months.

The gas based duel fuel model will be available from September this year and will be priced slightly higher around Rs 5 lakh to absorb the additional cost of the gas kit. Ford will be targeting taxi and commercial fleet segments.

It is yet to decided, whether to go in for a factory fitted CNG kit or entrust dealers with the fuel conversion activity. But it ruled out any LPG version and will concentrate more on diesel models and more variant from its stable will be out soon.

Ford today launched an all new Fusion with new bolder styling and refurbished two-tone avacado interiors, targeting urban customers with a new attractive price of Rs 5.69 lakh.

Pegged as urban utility vehicle, Fusion has been packed with features like parking headlights that come on while remote unlocking, a new battery saving device, which switches the lights off in case you forget to do so, cubic shaped headlamps, all new 10 stowage areas in the cabin, programmable keyless entry that can be programmed to open specific doors, DTE indicator showing the exact tank of fuel and flexible parking with increased turning radius of 4.9 metres.

Actor and theatre personality, Rahul Bose has been roped in as the brand ambassador for Fusion. On the Fusion re-launch, Ford refused to declare the new sales target, but claimed that it is expecting to doubled the already selling 300 units per month.

Scott McCormack, vice-president, Marketing and Sales, said, "It's a totally new product thoroughly based on customers feedback and suggestions. We have maintained the high commanding seating for all passengers but altered the front bumper and grille, while the mouldings have been curved for better styling. The price has also been rationalized to make it more competitive."

Available in five colours, a maintenance plan with Fusion will offer a comprehensive maintenance package at a price of Rs 0.39 per kilometer, where all scheduled maintenance and unplanned repairs will be borne by the Ford dealers.

Arvind Mathew, Managing Director and President, Ford, said, "We are covering a new and different market with this product now."