Ford EcoSport to challenge Renault Duster’s domination in India

Renault Duster had been dominating the compact Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) segment in Brazil until the launch of Ford EcoSport. Since January this year, EcoSport has started ruling the SUV segment in the Brazilian automotive market in terms of sales. Even though the Duster is priced comparatively lower than the EcoSport, the latter continues to outsell the former in recent months. The sales statistic of March 2013 reveals that 4,496 units of the EcoSport were sold in Brazil, while the Duster could manage to garner a volume of only 2,282 units.

While, in Indian automobile market Renault Duster is topping the charts with more than 6,313 units sold in the month of March 2013. With these numbers, Renault Duster has outsold its rivals Mahindra Scorpio and XUV500 by a wide margin to retain the top spot. Given the number of authorised dealers of Mahindra and Tata Motors, this is quite an achievement for Renault with its limited network of dealers.

However, the Ford EcoSport is slated to be launched in the Indian automobile market in next two months. Bound for a May or June launch, Ford EcoSport is expected to cloud the success of the Duster in India as well. Moreover, EcoSport will also have an advantage over Duster in the country in terms of pricing as it measures less than 4 metres and hence qualifies as a small car. This will help Ford to price EcoSport competitively against Duster owing to the rebate in excise duties on the former.

Ford EcoSport will be launched in India with both petrol and diesel variant like Renault Duster. One of the petrol variants of the compact SUV from American car maker will be powered by the 1-litre EcoBoost powertrain. It is also expected that the 1.5 litre petrol variant of the EcoSport will be the least priced automatic SUV in India with a 6-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission unit. In light of these obvious advantages that the EcoSport has over Renault Duster, it won’t be an exaggeration to assume that it will snatch the top position from Duster in the Indian market as well. However, it all depends upon the pricing of the EcoSport by the company.