Nissan and its partner Renault India recorded a better business in the last fiscal when compared to the market leaders like Hyundai, Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra and Tata and others in terms of growth. The Japanese auto maker recorded an annual growth of about 11 percent by selling a total of 36,975 units compared to the 33,270 units in the fiscal year 2011-12. These result looks quite impressive if you know that last fiscal year was not good in terms of sales for many manufacturers.
Nissan Sunny, the company’s flagship sedan, accounted for highest sale among its other models standing at 24,011 units in the last financial year. Nissan Micra hatch also sold pretty good with 11,454 units. Evalia that was launched back in October 2012 registered sale of about 1,396 units. The rest of the figures come from the sale of other models like X-Trail, Teana, and 370z Sports car. Managing Director and CEO of Nissan Motor India Pvt. Ltd., Mr. Kenichior said that in the view of the current operating environment it is a good performance.
Despite of the market slowdown, Nissan was able to maintain sale momentum in India and has also continued to pace up their operations in Indian auto market with the long term strategic goals. The company is also working on increasing their dealership network in India. It has been able to increase its dealership network to 95 in last 12 months in order to bring Nissan closer to the people and prospective buyers.
Nissan-Renault is dreaming big and wants to capture about 10 percent of the Indian auto market by 2016. They opened up their manufacturing plant at Oragadam in Chennai back in 2010 and the first vehicle to roll out was Micra in 2011. The plant has allowed Renault and Nissan to produce vehicles locally as a result they were able to bring down the cost and were able to launch 5 vehicles in 17 months. The company rolled out Fluence and Koleos in 2011 and then comes the Dusterm Pulse and Scala in 2012.
Director for sales and marketing, Hover Automotive India (the national sales company for Nissan India), Mr. Nitish Tipinis said that the company is still in the growth phase despite of the market slowdown just because of their stronger customer presence which has helped the company to keep the consistency of their sale target. He further said that Nissan will be rolling out new products throughout the year to meet the demand and aspirations of the customers. The growth is real appreciation for Nissan India as the market slowdown has forced several auto makers to downgrade their sale target but Nissan with the positive sale result has reasons to get happy. The growth rate also shows that the company is increasing its presence among the masses and the opening on new dealership will help it to reach out to a wider audience.