Ford banks on new EcoSport to revive sagging sales

Ford India Pvt Ltd is expecting that its upgraded EcoSport model will reverse the falling trend in sales. In October this year, Ford India's combined sales and exports were down by 32 per cent.

“We have disrupted the India market with our compact SUV Ford EcoSport. Our sales declined in October as we were in the process of ramp up for the new EcoSport model. The latest EcoSport would be a winner and with this model, we are preparing to take on incremental numbers (in sales)”, said Balaji R Narasimhan, general manager (field operations & sales planning), Ford India Pvt Ltd.

Ford has already sold more than 200,000 units of the original EcoSport model. Besides India, the compact SUV is exported to more than 50 overseas markets.

“At the new EcoSport, we have made 1,600 changes. We believe the market for compact SUVs is expanding and this justifies the introduction of the new, upgraded model. The share of compact SUVs to total car sales in the country is projected to rise from 16 per cent now to 24 per cent by 2020”, he said.

Narasimhan denied to share the sales targets or projections but exuded confidence that Ford would grow higher than the industry average of seven per cent.