Volvo, Ford to tie up in India

24 May 2007

New Delhi: Volvo is planning to increase its operations in India with help from Ford India whose US parent owns Volvo's car business. 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, as it did with the Ikon earlier and does now with the Fiesta.

The two companies would work on a common platform to launch their cars in the country and would bring in vehicles having shared technologies (platform) with Ford Motor to increase our presence in India.

Volvo plans to bring in its C30 and C70 cars, which share the platform with Ford's Focus range of cars, to India sometime next year.

The platform-sharing strategy stems from the growing luxury car market in the A4 segment, which grew by 49 per cent last fiscal - to 40,964 units in 2006-07 from 27,529 units in 2005-06 and is at present dominated by DaimlerChrysler, BMW, Audi and Porsche.

Volvo will debut in India with a sedan (S80) and a sports utility vehicle (XC90), to be priced between Rs45 lakh and Rs60 lakh.