New Delhi, Nov 13: The Indian unit of US auto giant Ford Motor company is making an aggressive sales and marketing drive, mainly focussing on non-metros, for its mid-size `Ikon' car and is also increasing its dealers to 66 by the year end, a top company official has said.In the first step, the company has identified the non-metro cities and towns for opening dealerships and is in the process of implementing a `paperless' web-based software system for tying up its dealers in the country.
According to Ford India Ltd, general manager (sales) Vinay Piparsania, "Our focus is the towns and cities in India where we see more growth taking place unlike the metros". He said the company was encouraging its dealers to implement a `hub-and-spoke' model for opening dealerships.
"The strategy is large territories and focussed group of dealers instead of a large number of dealers scattered all over the country," Mr Piparsania said.
Various Ford India dealers have more than one dealerships in different cities.
The company was also hiking its dealerships to 66 in 54 cities from the present 51 dealers in 44 cities by the end of this year.
"These dealerships are expected to cover about 96 per cent of the above four lakhs domestic car market," Mr Piparsania said.
"At present, about 33 per cent of our total `Ikon' sales derived from North and East India, South India contributes 38 per cent while the rest comes from West India," Mr Piparsania said.
He said Ford India dealers would also be opening `bodyshops' (workshops) which would be capable of servicing all car models.
On the web-based software system for dealers, Mr Piparsania said "It would help to achieve overall connectivity between the dealers and the company for faster logistics movement".
Ford India has sold 17,122 `Ikon' cars during January-October as against its target of selling 21,000 cars this year.
The company has commenced production of completely knocked down (CKD) kits of the mid-size car at its plant near Chennai and has shipped 1,600 CKD kits in October.
It has targeted to export 20,000 cars annually and said exports would generate revenues of Rs 165 crore next year.
Ford is, at present, selling five versions of `Ikon'namely `CLXi (petrol), EXi, `1.6 ZXi' (diesel) and the recently launched `SXi', which was being sold in a limited edition of 1,000 units.
(PTI)
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