[achyutaghosh]

An extremely comprehensive analysis- i must say. The only things that i would like to add are-

1. The frequent feature changes, often multiple times in one year on hot selling models like the Ecosport

2. The crazy pricing revisions (remember the 3.5 lakh increase in the Endeavour prices post launch, then some further changes post that)

3. Not understanding consumer demand for variants that led to long wait times. Many settled for lower variants of the Endeavour or went for rival products as Ford did not anticipate the demand for Titanium variants at launch in 2016

[84.monsoon]

A very comprehensive report and analysis which should make for a good B-school case study! This story holds.many lessons for the new entrants to the Indian market, such as MG, Citroen, etc. And even for existing marginal.players who operate in very few segments, such as VW, Toyota and Nissan. It is a tragedy that Ford could not succeed in India despite the fact that many of the products were segment-firsts or segment-leaders.

[iamahunter]

A truly excellent report and observations.

One thing I would like to say is, Ford always had a right car, at the wrong time.

And most of the times, Ford started it and later the other manufacturers cashed on it. (eg: Ecosport)


Also with the current global line up of Ford, it rarely has any small car.
Ecosport being the smallest of the its lineup
.
Most of the cars are either bigger SUVs(Escape, Edge, Bronco, etc), huge pickup trucks(Ranger, Maverick, F150 etc) and commercial vehicles. The commercial vehicles like Transit doesn't have a huge demand here neither the F650 truck. India is yet to build up on the infra for a successful electric car. Remaining is the only "car" in the with Ford - Mustang.

Hopefully, in the next 5-10 years if the plan goes well and India is ready with the infra for an electric car, Ford may return.

[ysjoy]

Most singular and fascinating narrative of the Ford situation in India, with data points and analytics!
Extremely compelling read!
Thanks @pqr!
Look forward to many more of such analyses!
Cheers!
ysjoy

[QuilonSpitfire]

The Indian govt has to scrap the "sub 4m" rule as it literally makes no sense. That could help save billions of dollars spent to develop an "India specific model". It should also be noted that introducing a new product to a nation that is addicted to maruti is a "do or die" mission.

[ritedhawan]

Nice write about Ford. It seems to me that it was always one car in their stable which was making the brand look relevant in India. Whether it was the 'Ikon' at the beginning followed by 'Fiesta' and down to 'Ecosport'.

Another aspect correctly pointed out in the write-up that people in India identified Ford cars with having good build quality, nice ride and handling, frugal Diesel engine. Thus according to me the biggest mistake committed by this brand is when it shook off \ let go of these essential qualities that should have remained part of their products. This was in my eyes their biggest mistake.

[tharian]

Originally Posted by ritedhawan

Another aspect correctly pointed out in the write-up that people in India identified Ford cars with having good build quality, nice ride and handling, frugal Diesel engine. Thus according to me the biggest mistake committed by this brand is when it shook off \ let go of these essential qualities that should have remained part of their products. This was in my eyes their biggest mistake.

The factors mentioned would not have had much of an impact since those were Ford traits that we enthusiasts wanted and were disappointed by. The general car buying public would not have noticed the change on the new Figo much.

The diesel engine is something that was known among the layman and that actually got better in the 1.5 TDCi, but that didn't help much either.

From what I know, Ford always had the tag of being expensive to maintain and that was known by everyone, car enthusiast or no. The old gen Figo and the Ecosport were the cars that actually did well in contrast to the maintenance costs. Figo because it was priced well and the Ecosport because it started a new segment.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by QuilonSpitfire

The Indian govt has to scrap the "sub 4m" rule as it literally makes no sense. That could help save billions of dollars spent to develop an "India specific model". It should also be noted that introducing a new product to a nation that is addicted to maruti is a "do or die" mission.

Using this post by Member @QuilonSpitfire to address the issue of the sub-4 metre rule. My views are not aimed at the author who by the way has a great sounding handle:-)

On team BHP I often read the view criticizing the sub 4-metre rule. I wonder why? In our country with its crowded roads, mixed forms of traffic, often narrow roads within cities it makes sense to encourage cars with the smallest footprint and tightest turning circle. Of course building public transport infrastructure would be even better. I believe, and will state at the risk of my neck being throttled on the forum, that we should also have an even greater concession for cars shorter than 3.6 metres. The road width of our inner cities and already built areas cannot be increased very much so the next best is to reduce vehicle footprint and improve public transport . Sadly progress with the latter is patchy except for the metro construction in now 13 cities.

Provocative question - should the Govt place a ceiling on engine sizes on cars, sold in India, at 1800 cc. After 1800 cc the increased engine size only adds to speed and vrooom-vroom factor. It ceases to contribute to the role of a car i.e. to transport up to 4 or 5 people in relative safety at a reasonable speed.

[sandeepmohan]

I don't believe Ford India tried hard enough. In over 20 years, they had launched and sold just 7 models! This is terrible. Flagship German brands (Mercedes, BMW and Audi) have done better than this. It does puzzle me why the updated Figo (Or Aspire) did not do well. There was nothing wrong with it. Several models from their International portfolio were missing. Cars that should have been launched. The Focus, updated Fiesta, Kuga, Puma, Escape, S Max (mpv), Endura, Mondeo. Where were all these cars and why were they never even considered for our market? Cause we want cheap? This no longer holds. Give us a good product and we will buy them.

What takes me by surprise about the Ikon's initial 70% localization content, this never felt the case when you had to fix the car. Parts were astronomically priced.

Great report. Thanks for sharing.

[MaxTorque]

Great report.

Like you said in the summary it is not a bad idea to exit from a non profit making/money bleeding business.

After reading your report, I couldn't check your profile. Your profession it all. :-)

[landcruiser123]

The manufacturer needs to adapt their products to the market and not the other way around. That is the difference between Hyundai and Ford, which both started at the same time.

Unlike GM, Ford has a competent small car line-up for Europe. They've just failed to offer the right product portfolio for India.

[kiku007]

Originally Posted by pqr

Note : The study takes into account data collected from the most trusted sources like the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers library, news reports filed by reputed publication houses, innumerable interactions with industry experts, among other reliable sources. However, the findings put forth to members of the Team BHP here, like any other study, is susceptible to error. In such a scenario, please feel free to correct the author with a polite comment or message. It’ll likewise be suitably addressed, and sincerely appreciated. Thank you, and wish you a joyous reading!

Take a bow! Thanks for the hard work and I certainly enjoyed reading it. Traditional publications would pay for such quality work.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

When news of Ford's decision to exit broke several wrote on that thread blaming their exit on the Indian market, the Indian consumer, taxes, the poor business environment, the Government, our sub 4-metre rule etc. At the risk of inviting their ire I'll state that when a big well endowed name with vast resources who chose to invest billions exit with large losses the only ones to blame are they themselves. It isn't even a blame. It is a conscious business call they took of what suited them and what did not. The India operations became collateral damage of their global losses.

The problem was that people wanted one reason/villain to blame for Ford's exit. The reasons are actually many and ultimately Ford was accountable for everything that transpired.

However, take a look at the below chart. Sure, Hyundai has emerged as the winner. That's one against so many other leading global automakers who have failed or underperformed. It'll be imprudent to dismiss them all as incompetent.

Who is accountable for the Indian car market not growing/maturing to the level they were told they would?

Originally Posted by pqr

Entering later than Ford, in the post economic liberalization era, Hyundai has sold 5 times more cars in India till date, and reached to 17% market share pinnacle of the Indian passenger vehicle (PV) industry. The Korean brand has even dwarfed the sales bar of Japanese global automotive giants (Toyota and Honda) in India.

[Madrasin_selvan]

Excellent Article and Analysis. Ford has always remained a One Car wonder in our market.

Ford did work on to bring India or Emerging Market Specific Models not once but twice but were stopped citing market conditions. I wonder what would have happened had they taken the bold step.

[sramanat]

Excellent analysis and IMHO, the below passage captures the essence of the analysis. Come to think of it, while everyone thinks Ford's cars are good objectively, one only saw Fiesta (back in the day) and sees Ecosport and Endeavour now on the roads.

Originally Posted by pqr

At any given point in time, only one car in Ford’s Indian portfolio did all the heavy lifting and supported 50%+ volume. Other products were either not so successful or worse – nonexistent in the portfolio. In early years, its portfolio was dominated by mid-size sedans, namely Ikon and then Fiesta Gen-1, followed by Figo Gen-1 hatchback, and now Ecosport, since its 2013 launch.

So, in long run, Ford India has always remained one car wonder, with Endeavour as icing on the cake. To achieve sustainable market share, automakers need to have a successful product portfolio, continuously updated in line with the latest market trend, and with a staggered product-life-cycle (PLC) curve. This helps companies to maintain healthy cash flow, and fend off their territory from the competition. It’s not that Ford India didn’t try, they tried very late and missteps took a toll on the whole company.

Also, it would be interesting to have the first graph (cumulative sales over the years) involving only cars that were direct competitors to Ford portfolio? That will show Ford taking a decent chunk of the pie, but unfortunately the action was completely elsewhere.

[fiat_tarun]

Amazing research man. You deserve to be paid for such a detailed report

I came across another nice article on this same topic - Link

Ford delivered a super car with the Ikon (can't believe it started with 70% localisation, which is amazing for that time), but just when they needed the backup to keep up the momemtum, Ford globally had it's own problems - Bridgestone tyre issue recalls, Ford US struggling, etc. which meant India never got the attention it deserved.

The next product the Fiesta came in a full 6 years later by which time the Ikon was more or less dead and it was back to a one model company. This was a trend that continued with Ford and probably led to them never going past the 3-4% share of market and hence the business never really grew to impress the bosses to allot more money to India.

Ford knew what kind of products worked in India, but lazy product planning, global issues and a flawed global 'One Ford' strategy worked against then eventually.

I was truly looking forward to the Mahindra-Ford JV. Imagine a XUV700 derived Ford followed by 2 Ford engineered new SUV's that were to come in 2023 .

I've said this in one of the other threads, but I am glad I got to own 2 Ford's in India, the OG Figo and my current ride, the Ecosport, both of which have been absolutely brilliant to drive and own.

The way our market is shaping up, I hope we don't end up choosing between just 4 manufacturers in the long term - Suzuki, Hyundai, Tata & Mahindra.