Ford India, the wholly-owned subsidiary of US car major Ford Motor Company, has doubled production at its Indian manufacturing facility in Chennai following increase in demand in the domestic market, a top official said.
Michael Boneham, president & managing director of Ford India, said the production in Chennai facility has been increased to 400 cars per day from 200 units. The increase in production has been achieved by introducing the second shift since July, he said.
?We have tripled our sales in August. So we need to increase our production,? Boneham said. The carmaker sold 7,925 vehicles in August this year, up by 220% compared to the same period a year ago. The company’s sales in the first eight months of this year rose by a whopping195% to 54,676 vehicles compared to the same period in the previous year. ?We expect same kind of performance in the rest of the year as the festival season is round the corner,? he added.
Without disclosing the figures, he said the company will maintain required level of inventories at its dealership to meet the festival demand. Currently Ford India, which has around 4,000 employees, has 167 dealerships across 97 cities in the country.
The newly launched small car Figo is the main driver of the company’s sales growth, he said. The Ford Figo remains at the top of the sales charts with more than 34,000 bookings recorded in the 25 weeks since it was introduced.
The annual production capacity at the company’s car manufacturing unit in Chennai has been increased to 2 lakh cars from 1 lakh a year ago. Ford is manufacturing Figo, Ikon and Fiesta with higher local contents in the range of 85-90% while it is assembling the imported Completely Knocked Down (CKD) kits of Endeavour with an indigenous level of around 35%.