Nissan recently inaugurated its 160th dealership in India (in Mumbai) and targets to double its sales and dealership network in the next two years.
Nissan aims to double its sales network by opening its 300th dealership in India by the end of next year. The Japanese maker is not only concerned to endorse metropolitan cities but is also focused to establish its name in small towns and cities. The company wants to spread brand Nissan to big cities while it targets Datsun in small towns and peripheries of bigger cities. The lack of a wide dealership network along with the poor service experience offered during Hover days, has led to the company not achieving its sales target with its emerging market specific brand.
The company has no future plans to have separate dealerships for Nissan and Datsun. The brands will sell vehicles under the same umbrella for the next five years at least. Nissan plans to open 50 percent of its forthcoming dealerships in small towns and cities. The firm later said that it has no intentions to launch any new Nissan product anytime soon. Datsun made a comeback after three decades and launched two cars in India, the Datsun GO and the Datsun GO+. The company had planned to introduce three cars at the time of the GO hatchback unveil and it still sticks to this strategy. The third car will be introduced within this year.
Datsun was resurrected to help Nissan achieve the target of acquiring 10 percent of the Indian car market by 2016 end. According to sales data, total passenger vehicle sales were 18,94,932 units between April to December last year. Nissan managed to sell only 35,042 units in 2014, which was an increase by 11,115 units as compared to 2013. This shows that that company is slowly progressing and establishing itself in India but not making a big enough impact to achieve its sales target.
