Ford CEO Mark Fields: China and India are key to growth
Ford Motor (F) is an American company eyeing overseas growth. By 2020, the company expects to boost its annual global sales by 45-55%, or about 9.4 million vehicles sold abroad. Ford CEO Mark Fields sat down with Yahoo Finance’s Bianna Golodryga at the New York International Auto Show to talk about Ford's global strategy.
China
Ford is taking on China in a big way. The company announced its new Lincoln Continental last week and designed the car with an eye towards the Asian market. China is now the world’s largest market for large luxury sedans and Lincoln plans to open 60 stores in 50 cities there by 2017.
“When the Chinese consumer buys a car like the Lincoln, they’re chauffeured in it so they’re in the rear seat,” says Fields. Because of that, Ford looked to design the back of the car as though it were a limo, with amenities like a champagne glass holder and large, reclining seats.
India
Ford is also looking to grow its market share in India, something that’s been in the works for two decades. Ford India reported a 33.62% increase in sales year-over-year as of March. This month Ford also announced a $1 billion investment in a manufacturing facility in Sanand, Gujarat, the company’s second in India. With 1.25 billion people and a rapidly developing economy, Ford is working hard to figure out what the Indian consumer wants and how to properly target them.
“The Indian consumer does their homework to a T,” says Fields. “They go through every element of the product and all of the information. They want great value because remember India is still a developing market so the income level of the consumer is still working its way up.”
Ford has created a sub-compact sedan, the Figo Aspire, just for the Indian market. Compact cars made up 45% of India’s auto market in 2014. Ford plans to sell 1.6 million cars in India by 2018, up from 1.1 million in 2014.
“The reason it’s so important that we compete there is because the Indian market is so demanding; there’s a lot of learnings we can take from that market to other markets around the world.”
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Europe
Emerging markets aside, Europe is also an important market to Ford.
“Clearly the European market has been under a lot of stress for the last four or five years. The good news is this year we’re seeing a bit of growth, which is good. Not astronomical growth, but growth and we’re going to continue to improve our brand and cost structure there,” says Fields.
While Ford may be all about the crossover and luxury market in the U.S. and China, the company is all about the minivan in Europe. Last week Ford introduced the fourth-generation Galaxy to the market. The focus on a minivan is a large departure from the typical small car market Ford captures overseas—for the past three years, Ford’s Fiesta has been the top-selling small car in Europe.
Sales in Europe this January were the highest they have been since 2012, growing 9.8% year-over-year.
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