Nissan Motors India’s Managing Director Mr. Kiminobu Tokuyama announced today that they have plans to export the Nissan Sunny, their mid-level sedan to West Asia and Africa from next year sighting high demand for such cars in those regions. Nissan had launched sunny in India last week at a very competitive price starting from Rs. 5.78 lakh for the base variant XE. The mid range XL and the top end XV are priced at Rs. 6.69 and Rs. 7.68 lakh respectively. He also announced that Nissan has plans to launch a multi purpose vehicle on the lines of Innova. “its going to be an MPV like the Toyota Innova” but refrained from disclosing any further details about the product.
While Nissan is targeting the local, West Asian and the African markets with their product, Sunny, the Micra which was launched by them last October is targeted for the European markets. Tokuyama said he is extremely satisfied with Micra’s export numbers which touched 1 lakh in 11 months. “This time around we are targeting the West Asia because of the demand there. Besides, we have already placed sedans from our UK and Spanish units in the European market,” he said
Apart from Sunny and Micra, Nissan India’s product offering includes the Teana, 370Z and the X-Trail. Nissan Motors India has their local manufacturing facility in Oragadam near Chennai. It has a capacity to produce 200,000 vehicles per year. They also have aggressive plans to increase their dealership network to 60 from the current 45. By 2013, the carmaker plans to take it up to 100. It employs around 4700 people at its manufacturing unit and around 1900 at its R&D center in Chennai. The team is currently involved in the feasibility study on its proposed small car to be priced between 2 to 4 lakh. Meanwhile, Mr.Tokuyama also dismissed speculations of Nissan picking up stake in Hover Automotive India, which is its partner in sales, service, parts, marketing and dealer development. “The company doesn’t respond to speculations. I can only say that our relationship with Hover is getting stronger and stronger and we will continue to work with them.”
