Nissan Company Franchise

Franchise News India,Franchise in India,Franchise MUMBAI: Nissan Motor Company is bringing in a sibling for its Datsun GO hatchback later this year and plans to build a separate Datsun dealer network in India, after the first product under the revived brand found fewer takers than what the Japanese carmaker had expected.

The company hopes the next Datsun-badged offering a multipurpose vehicle called GO+ -as well as newer versions of Nissan’s Sunny sedan and refreshed Evalia wagon to double its overall sales in India for this fiscal Year.

The Datsun GO small car was expected to pose a challenge to Maruti Suzuki’s Alto and Hyundai Motor’s Eon. Sales have been averaging around 2,000 – 2,500 units a month since the car’s launch in March. Alto and Eon sell several times more.

Unfortunately for the company, the GO launch coincided with Nissan’s breakup with Hover Automotive, the master franchise that handled its marketing.

Speaking on the sidelines of the new Sunny launch, Andy Palmer, chief planning officer at Nissan Motor and the second in command to CEO Carlos Ghosn, admitted the GO sales have not met the expectation due to a smaller dealer network. He said the company has the potential of selling at least 4,000-5,000 of the cars a month, which could still be possible once the entire dealer network comes on board.

“Product attribute wise it is well appreciated. The only reason for the lower-than-Expected number is the distribution, “Palmer said. “Earlier (before the Hover breakup), at the time of launch, we had expected a coverage of 90% of the market, but we are nowhere near that. We are putting in place our marketing team and dealership network. We are confident of Datsun’s future here.”

The company plans to have 200 dealerships by the end of this fiscal year through March, and add another 100 in the next two years.

With the incremental volumes of Datsun Go and facelifted Sunny, along with Datsun Go+ MPV, which is expected to be aggressively priced, Nissan is hoping to double its sales in India to almost 75,000 to 80,000 units. The Datsun family will also going to get another addition in late 2015 in form an entry level car internally codenamed i2 which will be priced between Rs 2 lakh to Rs 3 lakh.

Nissan’s 2.2% market share in India is one percentage point less than its expectation currently, Palmer said. But with the improved sentiment and new products in the pipeline, Nissan’s ambition of attaining a 10% share is intact.

Nisan’s 2.2% market share in India is one percentage point less than its expectation currently, Palmer said. But with the improved sentiment and new products in the pipeline, Nissan’s ambition of attaining a 10% share is intact.

“India is a very difficult market to understand. It has very diverse needs. The need of the customer in Delhi, Mumbai or Chennai can be different, so we are understanding that. For example, in our mid-term plan of five years, we have three products in the pipeline, with India as a lead country and hopefully designed to satisfy diverse needs of buyers here,” Palmer said.



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