Nissan not ready to give up on Evalia in India

Mumbai, 24 January, 2014: The Nissan NV 200 van has received a healthy response in international markets. However, christened as the Evalia in India, it is yet to catch the customer’s fancy. In the 14 months since its launch in India, the Evalia has sold around 1,700 units, or an average of 120 units a month.

Though customers are not cosying up to it, Nissan is not ready to write it off. “ In the market, customer is the king and the customer is god. We need to blame ourselves. We haven’t done enough to convince the customer,” says Kenichi Yomura, president & CEO, Nissan Motor India.

Nissan had refreshed the Evalia in October last year with some new features such as captain seats, sliding windows on rear doors. That has so far not had much effect on the sales numbers. So, Nissan is set to offer some more in the Evalia at the Auto Expo 2014 ‘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,” said Yomura.

His bullishness is based on the fact that Serena, a similar model as the Evalia, is a bestseller in Japan. Innova, the current bestseller in India had a relatively slow start. Compared to the Innova, the Evalia has a different challenge. The Evalia sales team will not only have to try harder to convince prospective customers to buy but also compete with their peers from Ashok Leyland who are selling the rebadged Ashok Leyland Stile.

SUMANTRA BAROOAH

Photograph: Kenichiro Yomura, president, Nissan India and Nitish Tipnis, director, Sales & Marketing, Hover Automotive India, at the launch of the new Evalia on October 15, 2013.