agencies, New Delhi, May 26: Buoyed by crossing of five lakh cumulative car-export milestone from India, Japan’s auto major Nissan is looking to enhance its status as one of the country’s top automobiles exporters.
Nissan Motor India, the company’s subsidiary here, which exported 1.2 lakh units last fiscal is looking to at least maintain the same number this year as the European and the Middle-East markets remained a concern.
“When we started operations in India eight years back we looked at the possibility of not only addressing domestic requirements but also for exports, as we needed to achieve economy of scale. Today we have justified that strategy,” Nissan India Operations President Guillaume Sicard told PTI.
Nissan began exporting from India five years ago and it at present ships to over 106 countries.
Korean auto major Hyundai is the largest car exporter from India.
Commenting on the road ahead, he said, “Today we are the second-largest car exporter from India, our model Micra is the most exported model from India and we look to enhance our position. We are always looking for new customers globally.”
When asked about this year’s targets, Sicard said, “We are looking to maintain last year’s export numbers, if not more. If we are able to do more would depend on how the European and the Middle-East markets recover.”
The Renault-Nissan Alliance has invested Rs4,500cr at the Chennai plant, which has a capacity to roll out 4.8 lakh vehicles annually.
New model next year
The company, which is targeting a five per cent market share by 2020 in India, will be launching a small car, said a senior company official Tuesday. Speaking to reporters in Chennai after flagging off the 500,000th car for overseas markets, Sicard said a new car will be launched in 2016. The new model will be under the Datsun brand.