India to play bigger role in Renault-Nissan’s global plans.
Carlos Ghosn, chairman and CEO of Renault and Nissan says that India will play a crucial role in next mid-term plan.
In a global media interaction session held at the Tokyo Motor show 2015, Renault and Nissan CEO, Carlos Ghosn revealed that the two companies planned to focus more attention on the Indian market in the next mid-term plan.
India is becoming a major attractor for multinational companies with the market being seen as one of the most promising in the emerging BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) markets.
“Among the large markets of the world, India is the market with the highest growth in 2015. It will end up seeing a 7-8 percent growth. We think it will continue. We can envision India will be in the top level of growth among the large markets for the next 2-3 years," Ghosn said in response to a query from our sister publication Autocar Professional.
This is in contrast to the Russian market which has seen a 50 percent fall in the last three years and the Brazilian market which has witnessed a 40 percent fall in the last two years. The growth rate in China has also started to slow down as well.
“For all carmakers, India is becoming more and more important because there’s growth and two car manufacturers having 70 percent of market share. So, everybody thinks there’s opportunity here. Atleast the small guys thing they can do a better job. And we are part of the small guys,” added Ghosn.
Renault recently launched the Kwid entry-level hatchback in India, with the small car garnering a lot of interest with bookings for the small car crossing 25,000 within a few weeks of its launch. The CMF-A platform underpinning the hatchback is expected to give rise to a new model in Nissan’s line-up under the Datsun brand with the new entry-level hatchback expected to be launched in India in March 2016 to celebrate the brand’s anniversary. Nissan is also learnt to be tweaking its strategy for the Indian market the results of which are expected to kick in in the coming three to four years.
Ghosn also said that since the global automobile industry’s growth was expected to be reach stagnation in the coming years, the two companies were looking to enhance its efforts in India and South Africa and also look towards developing newer markets.
Courtesy : Autocar