Ford India Registers A Drop Of Almost 40 Per Cent In April 2018 Sales

Ford India has registered total sales of at 15,281 units in April 2018, domestic wholesales and exports combined. The company saw a decline of almost 40 per cent when compared to 25,149 vehicles sold during the same month last year. The company's domestic wholesales saw a marginal drop of about 2.5 per cent with 7,428 vehicles last month, against the 7,618 vehicles sold in April 2017. The company's exports, at the same time, accounted for 7,853 units compared to 17,531 vehicles exported in April 2017, registering a heavy drop of 55 per cent.

Commenting on the company's performance, Anurag Mehrotra, president and managing director, Ford India, said, "Increasing inflation trajectory which might weigh on customer's access and cost to credit, coupled with increasing crude prices could lead to passenger vehicle industry growing at low single digits - so far this year". He also added, "At Ford, we continue to execute our strategy of building a strong brand, introduce right products, ensure competitive costs and effective scale."

In late April the company launched its first crossover vehicle in India, the Ford Freestyle, with prices starting at Rs. 5.09 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi). However, the impact of the Freestyle entry on the company sales performance can only be assessed in May sales numbers.

While the company's year-on-year sales for April hasn't been good, both in February and March the carmaker registered marginal growth, as against the sales numbers of the respective months in 2017. In March, Ford's total sales numbers stood at 27,580 vehicles and 23,965 vehicles in February 2018, both considerably more than what the company achieved in April 2018.