Renault-Nissan to scale up Chennai plant capacity 20%

Renault-Nissan, a global alliance between France-based Renault SA and Japan’s Nissan Motor Co Limited, is contemplating expanding the capacity of its Oragadam plant in Chennai to 480,000 units a year from 400,000, during the current financial year, said Kenichiro Yomura, managing director and chief executive of Nissan India.

“We foresee a huge surge in demand in the domestic market as the economy is expected to improve this fiscal. We plan to augment the production capacity by increasing the shifts as well as human resources at the plant, from the present 4,500,” he told mediapersons here on Thursday.

Nissan India, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nissan Motor Co, was incorporated in 2005. It offers products in hatchback, multi-utility, sport utility and sedan segments. The Renault-Nissan alliance has so far invested around Rs 4,500 crore in India.

“We have sold 38,217 units in the Indian market, besides exporting 120,000 units during the financial year ended March 2013,” Yomura said, adding the company was expecting to run the production facility with 90-95 per cent utilisation from the first quarter of this fiscal.

Stating that the company currently has a market share of around two per cent, which it intended to increase to 10 per cent by fiscal 2016, in India, he said they were, however, revisiting their plans. “We are realistic in our strategies,” Yomura said.

Nissan opened Nissan PlayStation GT Academy, a platform that offers aspiring racers and gaming enthusiasts to compete and win a place in Nissan’s driver discovery and development programme, in Hyderabad today.

The programme has already completed its qualifying rounds in Delhi and Mumbai. The Hyderabad leg will be followed by rounds in Bangalore and Chennai.

“The qualifying rounds have seen the participation of over 2,000 aspirants and we expect to end the rounds with 5,000 participants. From across India, 28 quickest lap times will be eligible to enter the national final planned for June-end. Six out of the 28 will go on to the international race camp at the Silverstone Formula 1 Circuit in the UK sometime during August-September,” Yomura said.