Ford's Big Sales Push with Little Cars

Ford has set an ambitious new goal: To increase worldwide sales to 8 million vehicles per year by 2015. Given the current state of the global economy, and the high price of gas, increasing sales from 5.3 million today to 8 million in only 4 years seems like a stretch, despite Ford's profitable situation. If Ford can achieve this goal, however, it will catch up to long-time rival Toyota.

The BBC quotes Ford's CEO as saying:

"Clearly the highest growth rates will be in Brazil and Russia and in India and in China. China's really exciting because in the next few years, we're going to go from the 5 vehicles we have in China up to 15 vehicles."

This week, Ford announced its plan to double output in Russia, with a local partner. In India, Ford will expand the number of models being marketed from 3 to 8. Also, the global sales push will contribute to the planned hiring of thousands of US workers in the coming years.

One part of Ford's sales push sounds particularly smart: By the end of this decade, it expects that 55% of its worldwide sales will come from small cars, up from 48% of global sales today. Lots of buyers who worry about prices and/or the environmental impact of vehicles are steering toward smaller cars, where Ford is going to grow.

Ford's social-media marketing is in the fast lane with Scott Monty at the wheel, an important plus for targeting younger buyers. The automaker is very active on Facebook (including a separate page for electric vehicles), Twitter, YouTube, and other social media. Even so, can it reach its 2015 goal?