Alan Mulally to IAB - Ford not looking to go under the B-Segment

17/06/2013 - 18:04 | Ford | Shrawan Raja

Speaking to IndianAutosBlog.com in Chennai this afternoon, Alan Mulally, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ford Motor Company said unlike his competitors, plans currently don't exist at the Blue Oval for products or brands in the sub-B segments.

From L-R - Joginder Singh, President and Managing Director of Ford India, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ford Motor Company, and  David L. Schoch  Title: Ford Motor Company Group Vice President and President, Asia Pacific
From L-R - Joginder Singh, President and Managing Director of Ford India, Alan Mulally, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ford Motor Company, and David Schoch, Ford Motor Company Group Vice President and President, Asia Pacific, in Chennai this afternoon.

Here are Mulally's exact words -

At the highest level we are not looking at any other brands either at the high-end or at the low end. We are focused on the Ford brand and the Lincoln brand. On Lincoln we are focused on the US first and then on China, because that's where the demand is. On the Ford brand, we are focused on B-Size up through the D-Size. So all the Ford brand is a family is the best in class vehicles. Right now we're not looking at below the B-Size because we have so much room to deliver the vehicles that people want in the B-Size so that's our focus right now. Further on we might do that, but we have so much opportunity to round out that full family of B-Size vehicles, in India, China and all around the world.

What you are going to see from Ford is a complete family of vehicles that people really value and us producing those at better quality and better productivity than the competition.

David L. Schoch, Ford Motor Company Group Vice President and President, Asia Pacific echoed Mulally's 'top hat' strategy. This is exactly what he told IndianAutosBlog.com -

First of all we love the Ford brand and that's where we're headed. When you think about the number of platforms that we have and the number of top hats that we could put on those platforms, and what we're looking to do is take the segmentation..just take the B-Segment...there's a lot of different customers in there, that go from the high-end down to the low-end. And our objective now is to see how to improve our market coverage in terms of what customers want within that by offering different powertrain combinations, different technology depending on where you are, and different top hats..four-door, five doors, maybe small pickups, SUVs..so that's where we are concentrating on and particularly the Ford brand and of course Lincoln...we have announced that we will be bringing it into China in the third quarter of next year. That's where we are totally focused on.

With these comments, its very clear that there wouldn't be a competitor model to the Maruti Alto or the Hyundai Eon from Ford even in the distant future. By 'round out' Mulally implies the products Ford will use to fill spots below and above the EcoSport. These could be anything from compact hatchbacks like the Figo, compact sedans like the Dzire, family vans like the Ertiga to complete saloons like the Fiesta.

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