Ford Figo launched in India

Ford betting on the small car drive in India has launched Figo with aggressive pricing. Figo is expected to take Maruti Suzuki Swift head on.

Figo comes with following variants:
Petrol 1.2 Duratec LXI, EXI, ZXI and Titanium

Diesel 1.4 Duratorq LXI, EXI with Ex-Delhi price of Rs3.55 Lakh for lower model and Rs4.95Lakh for higher end model.

Figo is completely built in India with around 85% parts sourced out of India only making it more competitive not only during entry but also after sales period. The customer perception of higher service maintenance cost had affected Ford sales over its rivals in sedan segment.

Ford is also talking aggressive strategy with new model introduction every year in small and mid-car segment. Ford produced its cars from Chennai, southern part of India. Ford presently has around 160 outlets and is expected to reach 200 outlets by year end.

(picture source - Ford India)

Ford India records 22.7% growth in February

Ford India registered a healthy 22.7% growth YoY with 3223 units sold in Feb2010.

Ford is betting heavily on Figo, the small car that is expected to be launched on March 9th. Presently Ford has Fiesta, fusion, Ikon, Endeavour.

Ford
growth	22.70%
sales	3223	2636

New small cars waiting to hit the Indian road

The small car segment making about 70% of the car market in India is waiting to see new entrants soon. Most of the cars were displayed at Delhi AutoExpo 2010.

All the OEMs are really terming these launches as make or break for their mid term plans. This segment has already having the Maruti Suzuki Swift, the Swift Dzire, Hundai i20, Tata Indica Vista and Fiat Grande Punto.

Chevy Beat which presently is in the forefront that was launched a day before the inauguration of AutoExpo has already created a buzz with 10000 bookings in a months time.

VW Polo is planned to be commercially launch in March under this segment. Recently the 11,111,111th model was rolled out from its Chakan plant in Pune. The small car version was launched in 1975 and in India VW expects to touch 100,000car sales by 2015. The VW polo will be built on a state of the art flexible assembly line from where the Fabia, the Skoda variant is built.

Ford Figo, again a make or break story for Ford is expected to be launched by end of February from its Chennai plant.

Etios, the Toyota’s entry in this segment is expected to be launched by the end of this year. Toyota presently has about 3% market share in Indian market with MUV, Innova being the biggest contributor, Corolla Atlis, Camry and Fortuner, the hybrid Prius. The Etios is going to be launched in both Hatchback and Sedan variants