Rajkot and Baroda will soon have Nissan showrooms as Group Planet Petal, the exclusive dealers of the premium brand in Ahmedabad, have chalked out expansion plans across Gujarat.
Nissan Motor India opened its first dealership in the region this week as a part of its national plan to open 55 dealerships by 2012. Sukhbir Bagga, director of Group Planet Petal said, "We are planning to open our Rajkot dealership in March next year while the Baroda outlet should be operational by August 2010. We have spend around Rs 2.2 crore on our Ahmedabad dealership and the Rajkot one would require an investment of around Rs 1.2 crore." Planet Petal is looking at coming up with showrooms in Surat as well, while nothing has been firmed up yet.
Nissan Motor India has roped in Hover Automotive India as its service partner for marketing, sales, after-sales service and dealer development in India. "The company currently has 22 dealerships across the country and three more will become operational within this month," informed G M Singh, vice chairman and managing director of Hover Automotive India. According tot he service provision agreement, Hover will help Nissan to expand its distribution footprint to all major cities in the country to achieve at leat 80 per cent market coverage. Currently, Nissan dealerships are spread across seven states in the country, Singh informed.
The company has been selling completely-built-units (CBUs), its sedan Teana priced above Rs 21 lakh and sports utility vehicle(SUV) X-Trail that is priced around Rs 25 lakh in India so far. It will launch yet another CBU model, Nissan's sports car, 370Z in January next year besides starting production on its global compact car Micra from May 2010.
"We plan to sell at least 400 units of the Micra between June to December next year and expect that sales of all models would reach 3000 units by 2011," Bagga claimed adding that sales of premium cars have been picking up every month. He has opened a 5,500 square feet showroom together with a 58,000 square feet workshop in the city.