Nissan enters pre-owned car biz in India

Recognising the huge potential of the used / pre-owned passenger vehicle business in India, Nissan has announced its entry with its Nissan Intelligent Choice (NIC) division. Apart from selling used cars, it will also have exchange offers for customers to own a new Nissan and Datsun car.

According to Nissan, every car will undergo a 167-point quality check and vehicle inspection, with a quality certified check by technical experts. The company will also offer finance and insurance options to customers through Nissan Finance and finance partner HDF at lowest rate of interest and maximum loan to value (LTV) of up to 95 percent.

The Japanese carmaker says customers of its used-car-business can also opt for dedicated 24x7 roadside assistance (at no additional cost) along with warranty benefits. The certified cars will also have warranty of up to 12 months / 20,000km along with 3 free inspections for all Nissan and Datsun vehicles.

The cars sold through the used-car business will be certified vehicles that are less than seven years old and have covered less than 100,000km.

Commenting on the launch, Satinder Singh Bajwa, director – sales, network, customer quality (CQ) and POC (Pre-Owned Car), says, "Nissan Intelligent Choice is our global business model for pre-owned cars and after its success in Brazil and South Africa, we are excited to introduce it in India. We believe that Nissan Intelligent Choice will be an ideal platform to the customers looking for quality tested reliable pre-owned cars at value-for-money prices."

Nissan Motor India continues to see muted growth in the Indian market; it has sold 21,647 units in the April-August 2017 period (-10.11%). Exports have been a different story, the company exported 25,809 units (-31.38%) in the first five months of this fiscal.

India, with its low penetration of vehicles per capita, is seeing a paradigm shift. While there is a huge demand for new cars in the domestic market, millennials have seeing a mixed preference towards pre-owned cars as well.  In FY2017, the overall used car market in India was around 3.6 million vehicles, a 9 percent growth.