Volvo to piggyback on Ford to launch C30, C70 cars, SUVs

The Indian car mart is in for a pleasant surprise. Volvo, the European auto major, will piggyback Ford India to mark its India foray. Volvo will launch a sedan and a sports utility vehicle, which will sport price tags in the range of Rs 45 lakh to Rs 60 lakh. The launches are expected to happen later in 2007.

A report said that the Indian subsidiaries of the two companies are planning a joint strategy under which Volvo will cater to the high-end market, while Ford will feed the mid-size segment. Ford had earlier adopted the same strategy when it launched the Ikon and later on the Fiesta.

Ford India's parent, the US-based Ford Motor, owns Volvo's car business. A Volvo top official was quoted as saying that future launches in India could be a part of the company’s global synergy with Ford Motor.

While it has been rumoured that common platform models with Volvo cannot be ruled out in India, Volvo and Ford India have clarified that the two would work on a common platform to launch their cars in the country. The companies would bring in vehicles having shared technologies platform.

A report said that Volvo plans to bring in its C30 and C70 cars, which share the platform with Ford's Focus range of cars, to India by next year. The report added that the strategy of sharing the platform stems from the growing luxury car market in the A4 segment. It may be seen that the luxury car mart in the A4 segment zoomed by 49 per cent last fiscal to 40,964 units in 2006-07 from 27,529 units in 2005-06. Companies such as DaimlerChrysler, BMW, Audi and Porsche are the lead players in this space.

Meanwhile, there are also analyst observations that the platform sharing strategy could be an effective long-term growth plan for the two companies in the highly competitive Indian market.