Ford Late in China Sees New Buyers Making Laggard a Leader: Cars

Joe Hinrichs, Ford Motor Co.’s top executive in Asia, has a solution for the carmaker’s minnow status in China: cheap cars in backwaters.

“If you want to become a volume leader in the world, you’ll have to compete at the lower price points because that’s where the growth is,” Hinrichs, who oversees Ford operations in the Asia Pacific and Africa region, said over lunch at Morton’s in Shanghai last week. “In China, we decided -- and you can debate the intelligence of that decision -- not to offer a full range of products. That’s something we’re changing.”