Why Nissan is not ready to give up on Evalia in India

In less than four months, the Nissan Evalia will undergo another round of new introductions in it. In October last year, Nissan had added new features such as captain seats, sliding windows on rear doors to the Evalia. Now, Nissan is set to offer some more in the Evalia at the Expo ‘to make it even better’. The refreshed version could get a new grille and a factory fitted AC unit for rear seats among other additions. “We are working to penetrate into the customer’s mind and convince him/her that Evalia is a very comfortable and affordable good car,” Kenichiro Yomura, President & CEO, Nissan Motor India said to me.

The efforts are part of a more focused strategy to create a market for the Evalia, which is yet to catch the customer’s fancy even after 14 months of its launch in India. During this period, the Evalia has sold only around 1200 units, or an average of 86 a month. Though customers are not cosying up to it, Nissan is not ready to write it off. “I have no intention to blame the customer. In the market, customer is the king and the customer is god. We haven’t done enough to convince the customer,” says Kenichi Yomura, president & CEO, Nissan Motor India. The Evalia had hit a sales high of 346 units in March and a low of 14 units in August last year. A source says that after the introduction of the new features in October the sales number touched 100 in December, and is likely to be a little more in January.

His bullishness is based on the fact that Serena, a similar model as Evalia, is a bestseller in Japan and Innova, the current bestseller in India had a relatively slow start in the Indian market. However, compared to the Innova, the Evalia has a different challenge. Innova had replaced a very successful model, Qualis and the Evalia has to fight against a now well settled Innova for customers. The sales team for the Evalia not only will have to try harder to convince prospective customers to buy it, but will also have to compete with their peers from Ashok Leyland who are selling the Ashok Leyland Stile, a rebadged version of the Evalia.