Nissan Motor said on Thursday it would consider manufacturing in India or joining hands with a local partner to catch up with its rivals in the country.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
“We recognise that we are latecomers, and we realise that there are peculiarities to this market, but we believe there is great potential and we are confident we can grow quickly,” Yoshie Motohiro, Nissan India’s managing director, told Reuters.
Nissan, 44%-owned by Renault SA , has invested $US960,000 in setting up its wholly-owned Indian subsidiary, and plans to expand its local dealer network.
Reuters said the automaker is faced with uncertain growth in the United States and Japan, and is looking to markets such as China and Russia for growth.
It launched the X-Trail compact sport utility vehicle in India last August, and sold 130 units in the year to March 2005. The company hopes to nearly double sales this fiscal year and will look at introducing small and mid-size models.
“These segments are growing quickly in India, and there is also potential for SUVs, so we are keen to tap that,” said Motohiro, who Reuters noted was the first woman at Nissan to run a regional subsidiary.
The news agency also noted that Renault recently struck a separate joint venture with Indian utility vehicle maker Mahindra & Mahindra to make Logan cars at a plant in India with a capacity to make 50,000 cars, a €125 million project.
“That venture will have no relation with ours, but if we find some common areas in which we can cooperate on, we may look at those at some point,” Motohiro reportedly said.
The news agency noted that Toyota, Honda and Mitsubishi Motors are firmly rooted in India, with a passenger vehicle market of about a million units a year.
