A major American automaker has been fine-tuning its operations in Asia this week. Ford started the week by announcing it would close all of its operations in Japan and Indonesia. By the end of the week, the company announced some new plans for India. HPR’s Bill Dorman has more in today’s Asia Minute.
The Ford Mustang will roar into India sometime this spring, complete with the steering wheel on the right hand side. Ford is hoping India will be a growth market for the Mustang—a contrast to disappointing overall sales in Japan and Indonesia. Both of those countries also drive on the left side of the road and for years, Ford marketed vehicles there with the steering wheel on the right… but it wasn’t enough.
This week a spokeswoman announced “it has become clear that there is no path to sustained profitability” in either location. So the automaker will close operations in Japan and Indonesia by the end of the year. The company retains aspirations elsewhere in the Asia Pacific…including China, where its sales grew 3% last year to more than a million vehicles.
This week Ford’s quarterly earnings showed Asia Pacific pretax profit quadrupled to nearly 450-million dollars last year. As for the Mustang, 2015 was the first time in the car’s 50-year history that it was sold overseas. One of the first shipments was to China. Car News China reports the price of a Mustang is the equivalent of more than 64-thousand US dollars… about two and a half times as much as the same model costs in the United States. Prices for India have not yet been announced.
