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Japanese automajor Nissan recently announced top management changes by appointing Guillaume Sicard as President, Nissan India and bringing in Arun Malhotra, the former head of international sales at Mahindra, as the new Managing Director for its India entity. In an interview with T E Narasimhan, Malhotra discusses the company's future plans. Edited excerpts:
What are key areas you are looking at?
My primary focus is to strengthen our reach and improve our footprint in the country. Secondly, we need to create a strong recall value.
What is your sales strategy (for both domestic and export markets), considering that your have two brands -- Nissan and Datsun -- under your wings. How do plan to manage the two brands?
The biggest differentiator for both Nissan and Datsun is the product. We believe the products speak for themselves. But we need to improve our footprint in terms of physical reach. We are looking to work with our finance partners to expand our presence and are eyeing a strong presence in states such as UP, Rajasthan among others.
The perception is that Datsun is not meeting the company's expectations. What are your plans to drive sales for the brand?
Datsun is new to India and it will take a while for the sales to perk up. But we are fully committed to the brand. We have recieved positive feedback from our customers and dealers so I'm confident we can build a strong Datsun brand in India.
Are you happy with the current product portfolio or do you see a gap? How many launches have you planned over the next 2 years?
The Indian market is very dynamic and is showing a shift in demand and customer expectations across segments. We are observing these changes and our future product strategy will reflect these market dynamics. To that end, we are continuing to update our product portfolio with strong new launches including the new Sunny slated for 2014 and Datsun Go+ slated for 2015.
Will there be any small cars other than the Micra?
We do not comment on our product strategy.
Nissan has been targetting 10% market share. Do you see that happening anytime soon? What are the challenges to this goal?
What is of utmost importance is to get the fundamentals in place. Post restructuring, we have been investing in building a strong team and network. We are committed to building Nissan into one of the largest overseas manufacturers in the country, with a significant share of the market. Building a brand is like a marathon not a 100 meter race. We are here for the long run.
Why has Nissan not been able to achieve the numbers which its competitors have managed every month?
Nissan is showing a steady growth in sales. Our network reach is also expanding considerably. I feel that we have successfully established a bridge for sustained future growth.
Top OEMs have started expanding capacity, through brownfields and greenfields, in India. Why is Nissan silent?
Nissan has made an investment of Rs 4,500 crore over a period of seven years with partner Renault. The plant has a capacity of 400,000 units and can be expanded to 480,000 units. We also have a large R&D center with over 4,000 engineers. Currently, there are no plans on this front.
What are your views on the Indian passenger car market and what is the sales target for Nissan over the next two years?
The recent market slowdown is not a lasting phenomenon - total industry volume in India for FY13 reached 2.9 million (PC+LCV) and for fiscal 2014 it will be around 3.2 million units, and could exceed 5 million by 2019. Nissan is committed to and is planning for the long term. I am very confident that the market will grow, as aspirations are growing.
