Duster clone, Evalia refresh, DatsunÂ…new Nissan boss aims to double sales

Very soon, Nissan will launch its version of big bro Renault’s Duster. The buzz is, it looks better than Duster and may be a tad pricier.

Then comes a reworked Evalia multi-utility vehicle, which kind of failed at launch. Nissan’s redoing the design etc.

Then a Micra refresh.

And finally, the biggest of them all – the Datsun small car.

These steps, the Japanese carmaker believes, will more than double sales volumes in India from the 37,000 units sold last fiscal.

Kenichiro Yomura Yomura, the new president for India operations at Nissan, however, did not specify the time of these launches.

He is keen to transfer the experience and insights gained in regions like the Middle East and China to his Indian stint. “I was in China for five years. Nissan is now No.1 among the Japanese brands there. I’m trying to do the same thing in India,” he said in Mumbai on Thursday, his first interaction with the media after assuming office in April.

“I see success in every launch. In China, I launched nine products. Out of them, only one failed. We are entering the growing SUV market. We have a good opportunity there.

Datsun may not contribute significantly this fiscal though as it is getting launched at the fiscal-end,” he said.

Apart from new launches, Nissan India is looking to expand its network from 95 dealers last year to 145 dealers by this fiscal-end. The company exported 1.30 lakh units last fiscal and expects to maintain the same number this fiscal.

For a company that is targeting a 10% market share in India by 2016, things have not been smooth. Most of its existing models, except the Rapid, have failed to generate volumes.

For instance, last fiscal, sales of the Micra, Nissan’s small car, dropped almost 38% on-year. The Evalia, Nissan’s latest multi purpose vehicle, has been averaging sales of 232 units a month for the past six months, much lower than the company’s target of 2,000 units a month. Yomura has admitted that the response to the Evalia has not been as expected “because it is a new concept”.

He said, “We need to work on it further. Customers are looking at aspects like fuel efficiency and affordable price. We need to do more. We are working on a refresh of the Evalia. You will see some new specifications.”

The company clarified that it will continue working with Hover Automotive. Last year, dealers were reportedly unhappy with the latter’s appointment as a middle party between them and Nissan.