At a time when leading car manufacturers are widening their compact car portfolio, US car maker Ford is phasing out its hatchback Fusion from the Indian market as it gets ready to launch small car Figo next month.
?We will discontinue the Fusion. The car was anyway giving us relatively small volumes,? Michael Boneham, managing director and president, Ford India, said.
As per the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, sales of the Fusion has been falling rapidly during the past few months with only one unit being sold in December and sales plummeting to zero in January this year. Ford India had cumulative sales of 507 units of the Fusion during the April-January period of the current fiscal, as against 1,737 units during the same period of last year, a dip of 70.8%.According to Boneham, the phasing out of Fusion is part of a product rationalisation strategy with the firm looking to focus on the compact car segment, which constitutes over 70% of the Indian car market that is heading towards the 2 million-mark per year.
?The focus on small cars will be through the Figo, which will have 85% localisation and will be rolled out in March. The commercial production of the car has already started at our Chennai plant from February 5,? he said, adding that the company has aggressive plans regarding Figo and the vehicle will be benchmarked against key competitors. The compact car segment in India is currently ruled by Maruti Suzuki India, Hyundai Motor India and Tata Motors.