Nissan Motor Co has ambitious plans for its India operations. The Japanese automaker believes that in around three to four years, Nissan Motor India will leapfrog into its top 3 subsidiaries globally, up substantially from its current position in the top 20.

Initially, the top management of Nissan Japan had talked about a 10 percent market share by 2020 but given the market conditions, the carmaker is looking at a “realistic” target of 5 percent by CY2020. As of February 2015, Nissan Motor India has a market share of 1.81 percent in the overall Indian passenger vehicle market (comprising cars, utility vehicles and vans).

Parent company Nissan, which sold 5.3 million units worldwide in 2014, has a 5 percent global market share at present. Of this number, nearly 1.3 million cars were sold in China, the world’s largest automobile market.

According to Guillaume Sicard, president – Nissan India operations, Nissan is among the top three fastest growing brands in India, albeit on a small base. Sicard’s focus now is on growing brand awareness through marketing communication and on-ground activities. Currently, as per internal surveys conducted by the company, he says while Nissan enjoys top-of-mind recall with three out of 10 customers in India, for Datsun it is a low 1 out of 10, which he plans to grow.  

Nissan till now has invested Rs 4,500 crore in India. Most of this has gone into setting up the Oragadam plant which has a manufacturing capacity of 400,000 vehicles and 400,000 engines per annum. Nissan Motor India currently exports 60 percent of its production and is the country’s third largest automobile exporter after Hyundai Motor India and Maruti Suzuki India. In the current fiscal (April 2014-Febraury 2015), it has produced a total of 141,694 units – it has sold 31,309 cars in the domestic market (down 10.24%) and exported 106,091 units (up 19.46%).

Guillaume Sicard says localisation levels in India have reached 88 percent now. At present, he adds, 13,000 people work directly with Nissan India and another 40,000 are employed with its component suppliers. The Renault Nissan Technology Centre in Chennai has a staff strength of around 5,000 people.