Renault India, the domestic division of French auto maker, seems all set to bet high on the domestic auto market. The auto maker is currently banking on the overwhelming response received by the Duster compact Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV), which has tasted immense success in the market. Interestingly, Renault closely works with the Japanese auto maker, Nissan to introduce the cross badged models, with slightly different design.
It must be noted that the French auto maker's small hatchback Pulse and Scala sedan are the twin models of Nissan Micra and Sunny, respectively. During May 2013, Renault India delivered 6,300 units to the domestic buyers, among which 5,146 units accounted for Duster. Under the review of year-ago sales when it sold just 482 units in May 2012, the auto maker has reported a steady year-on-year growth of over 13-fold in the Indian auto market.
Expressing his views on this sales performance, the Operating Chief of Renault, Carlos Tavares was quoted as saying, “We should continue to enhance commonality while cross badging of vehicles should be more differentiated in design of the car. We should use common power trains, platforms, module which a common man can't see or touch, but on the parts, which they can see, we need to differentiate better.”
According to him, in the current scenario, sharing of components in this competitive market is quite necessary, which ultimately helps the companies in economically pricing their models. “So I think we should continue to enhance the commonality. Since I have to pay for the tooling, if I share parts with Nissan, then I can localize, as the volumes of parts is bigger,” he added later.
According to him, Renault India will continue to embark on its 'core model strategy' and thus will offer around seven to eight new models in the Indian auto market. Tavares further said, “The Indian market is extremely competitive and therefore doing too many cars is a waste of focus and energy. Instead we should strive to improve our communication about our vehicles with our customers better. Yes let's enjoy the fact that we have improved our market share by 2 per cent in one year. Soon we will be making some money, but what next, how to prepare for a sustainable and a reasonable growth going ahead. We don't have to increase our market share by 2 per cent every year, but we have to be realistic.”
For the year 2013, industry experts are of a view that Renault will not end up with just the success of Duster model and thus, will offer new segment defining models in the Indian auto market. The company official further said that Renault India has a great scope of improvement at its Chennai manufacturing unit, as the company is now looking ahead to deliver superior quality products to its potential customers. He added, “But the way we are achieving is not very lean, it is not very frugal, so we have a very huge room of improvement in the plant, in terms of making them more efficient.”
