Nissan eyes three-fold growth in 2014-15

Response for Datsun is good, but numbers did not meet expectations, says Nissan India President

Japanese automajor Nissan said that it is expecting three-fold growth in sales in 2014-15. The target comes on the drop of Datsun sales, new launches improved sentiment in the economy after election results and other internal issues.

Kenichiro Yomura – President, Nissan Group of India said "last year several factors impacted company's sales including economic condition resulted in market degrowth, difficult in after sales (company's major warehouse was caught in a fire last year) and performance of distribution".

He added, "I am optimistic about 2014-15."

In April the company posted three times growth in sales, after adding Datsun and Terrano.

Customer confidence will come back in healthier way after the new Government forms and company can continue the current (three times growth) momentum," said Yomura. Nissan sold around 36000 units during the last fiscal and since launch of Datsun in February this year the company sold around 5000 units of Datsun.

"We are happy with the response for Datsun, though the sales numbers were less compared to what we expected," said Yomura. He attributed this to general market condition.

The company plans to launch Datsun Go in the second half of the year, upgraded version of Sunny and new version of Evalia in 2014.

He was talking on the sidelines of launching a new warehouse at Oragadam, where Renault-Nissan had set up a Rs 4,500-crore manufacturing facility.

The new distribution facility is situated at Indospace SKCL Industrial Park near Oragadam with total built over area of 4.8 lakh sq ft. It will have a daily outbound volume of 2,800 lines as compared to 700 lines and will have an increased dispatch rate of 90%, he said.

"Our plans is to have a hub and spoke parts distribution model. We will set up additional spare parts distribution centres in northern and western regions during this fiscal in tie up with Indospace SKCL to smoothen the spare parts distribution across the country," Yomura said.

To support the sales of Nissan, Renault and Datsun brands, the two Alliance partners (Nissan and Renault) are planning to bring their global financial arm to India.

"We hope it (the financial arm) will commence operations during second of the fiscal," said Yomura.

Nissan also plans to expand its dealership network to 300 plus by end of 2016-17 from the current 130.