Small cars: Nissan eyes 5% market cap

CHENNAI: Nissan India will get its own new product from the Nissan-Renault alliance's CMF-A platform but it won't be a variant of the just-unveiled Kwid. According to Guillaume Sicard, president, Indian operations, Nissan, the next model from the platform will be unveiled with Datsun badging in the first semester of the next calendar year. "It will not be a Kwid variant," said Sicard. "It will be a completely different car with distinctive design, shape, look and feel." The new car will add to the Go and Go+ in the Datsun range with the company looking to use its Datsun brand to gain 4-5% share of India's compact car segment.
Nissan is looking to use its Datsun brand to "crack" India's small car market. With sales of around 2500 units last month, the Datsun brand "has the potential to sell around 30,000 units a year," said Sicard. "Our target is not ambitious but we really want to improve month-on-month and year-on-year and grow despite the challenge from Maruti's huge segment heritage," he said. With Maruti commanding 75% share of the small car market and Hyundai another 22%, the rest of the companies are reduced to bit players. "Currently we have a 3% segment share and we cant to grow that to 4-5%," said Sicard.
The company recently launched a variant of theTerrano called the Terrano Groove which is a more feature rich, high content version. "With this we are targeting a younger audience and bringing more value to the segment," said Sicard. The Terrano typically sells around 1500 units a month and the Groove is expected to roll in around 500 units in the next two months.
Nissan-Renault's Oragadam facility just outside Chennai is currently functioning at 60% capacity.
The plant produces for both Nissan and Renault's domestic sales as well as export shipments.
"Last financial year we exported 120,000 units and our target is to at least hit that level this year," said Sicard. "But there are some factors which are not in our control. Europe's economic recovery is a critical factor as is the oil situation in the Middle East," he added.