In order to increase its market share, Ford India plans to make locally-developed products to suit the needs of the Indian market. It intends to increase the involvement of its local research and development team.
Ford, which has been in India for 20 years, was banking on its global products to become bestsellers in India. The domestic sales of Ford India, which launched Freestyle on April 27, declined nearly 1.5 percent to 90,061 units last year as compared to FY 17, as per data shared by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers. The industry grew 8 percent last year.
Over the last 18 months, the India product development team has grown around 800-1,000 people and we have plans to grow it further. More than 50 percent of the development work of Freestyle was done in India. It has a R&D centre in Chennai.