VW-Suzuki Deal Does Not Affect Nissan-Maruti Suzuki Partnership

Suzuki and Volkswagen had entered into a partnership a few months back where the former would provide its expertise to latter in developing small cars for the global market. Volkswagen now holds 20 percent stake in Japanese car company, Suzuki Motor Corp. VW is aggressively looking at penetrating small car segment in the developing markets especially India and China.

Nissan currently sources its small car model from India from Maruti Suzuki Corp which is successfully sold in European markets under Nissan's own label. When VW acquired stake in Suzuki Corp, speculations had been rife about whether Nissan will continue to source Pixo from Maruti Suzuki. This is because Nissan Pixo strongly competes with VW Lupo in Europe. Nissan’s Executive Vice-President, Colin Dodge had also recently commented “We do not know yet whether that strategy is still good, with Suzuki joining Volkswagen. A lot of people believe not, and we are thinking about it.”

According to the recent reports, Nissan will continue to source Pixo from MSIL until its contract expires in 2012. “Nissan will be left without a small car if they terminate the agreement. We have had no formal dialogue with the company so far on the issue and our understanding is that the deal will continue for the entire duration, which extends till 2012,” said MSIL Chairman, RC Bhargava.

Nissan is also coming with global small car model Nissan Micra built on new global platform that will cater to demands from developing as well as developed markets.

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