The competitive sub-4 lac segment of the Indian market will receive at least two cars from the Japanese automobile giant Nissan Motor Corporation by 2014. These cars will be launched under the vintage Datsun brand, which has been revived by the car maker. The Datsun badge will also be launched in markets like Indonesia and Russia. The car maker has high hopes regarding the vintage brand in order to cash in 33-45 per cent of the company's total sales in India, Indonesia and Russia by 2016 year end.
Program Director, Datsun Business Unit, Nissan Motor Corp., Ashwani Gupta, said, “There will be 2 products in each of these markets and we have already decided on them.” He added, “Others start with products and platforms; we will start with the consumers and hence price is intrinsic to us.”
Datsun brand cars will be customised to favour the local conditions of the respective markets and would not be modelled on any global platform. Thus, the models in the three markets, namely India, Indonesia and Russia, will have little in common. In India, the Japanese car maker is foraying into a segment where it cannot compete as of now – the sub-4 lac category.
The vehicles will be assembled locally at the Chennai manufacturing plant of the Franco-Japanese alliance of Renault-Nissan. However, according to Gupta, Renault is not a part of this project. He said, “Datsun is a Nissan brand, as is Infinity.” He added, “In the course of product development or production there maybe some commonalities (with Renault).”
Currently, Micra is the only offering of the Japanese car maker in the range of Rs. 4 lacs to Rs. 6.5 lacs. Most of the small cars in the domestic markets are sold in the price range of Rs. 2.5 lacs to Rs. 4.5 lacs. Some of these models, including Maruti Suzuki Alto, Maruti Suzuki WagonR and Hyundai Eon, gross sales volumes of over 10,000 units every month for their respective manufacturers. Going by this fact, the partnership between Renault-Nissan-Datsun may launch several small cars in this range for the price sensitive masses in order to boost volumes.
One of the classic examples of how the small cars launched by domestic car makers struggle to even maintain sales is Tata Motors' Nano. It was launched as the people's car at a starting price of Rs. 1 lac, but floundered badly in the market. Following this observation, it would be worth watching the progress of Renault-Nissan-Datsun cars in the country. These brands are not well known here and are yet to establish a network of dealers and service centre in Tier I and II cities, where small cars are heavily in demand.
