Nissan aims to ramp up India exports to 1 lakh units annually by FY26

Japanese carmaker Nissan Motor Corporation, which outlined its mid- to mid-long-term business plan – The Arc – at its global headquarters today, has also reaffirmed its strategy to make India a hub for vehicle exports.

The company aims to augment capacity utilisation of its manufacturing facility in Oragadam, Chennai, planning to ramp up it made-in-India vehicle export volumes to 100,000 units annually in the mid-term, by FY26. The Tamil Nadu plant, which is shared with its global Alliance partner Renault, has a combined annual production capacity of 480,000 units.

Nissan Motor Corporation will continue to leverage its alliance in India through this plant, as well as the duo’s engineering centre – Renault Nissan Technical Centre India (RNTBCI) – also located in Tamil Nadu, revealed the company’s President and CEO Makoto Uchida, in a global announcement.

While exports, at 60,608 units, accounted for more than 64 percent of Nissan Motor India’s cumulative volumes (94,219 units) in FY23, the company will now target to grow the annual shipments by an additional 40,000 units by FY26. Nissan Motor India presently exports the Magnite compact SUV to more than 108 global markets such as Latin America, Africa, Middle-East, as well as to neighbouring countries like Bangladesh.

The company commenced its export operations from India in September 2010, and in FY23, accomplished the milestone of exporting a cumulative 1 million cars from the country. “We will continue to leverage our Alliance in India, and India will be a hub for exports at the level of 100,000 units,” said Uchida at the global announcement.

New model strategy for India

The company’s heavy reliance on exports from India is also resultant of its piffling less than 1 percent domestic market share, owing to a single-product portfolio, and the lack of urgency in bringing new products to the Indian market.

However, the Japanese carmaker has also outlined its future product roadmap for India along with its alliance partner. Both Nissan and Renault will introduce two compact SUVs each, as well as an individual A-segment EV from their respective stables, in the coming years. The two new A-segment EVs will be either carmaker’s maiden EV in India, which is witnessing growing adoption of the zero-tailpipe emission technology, led by government push and GST support.

“We will work on collaborative high-value creation projects across the dimensions of product, market, and technology, within the Alliance. In India, we will work with Renault to produce CMF-A and CMF-B products. India has rich Alliance assets in manufacturing, R&D, and other services, and will be a strong hub for the Alliance,” said Uchida.

The two carmakers are eyeing cost competitiveness and long-term profitable growth with EVs, and aim to leverage partnerships to achieve scale, and supplement strategic gaps. “Therefore, we are targeting partnerships across markets and domains in the key areas of technology, product portfolio, and software services. In this regard, we will continue to leverage the Alliance in Latin America, ASEAN, and India,” he added.

While the new models will be aimed at India, they will also cater to the needs of overseas markets, thereby augmenting Renault-Nissan’s Chennai plant capacity utilisation to nearly 80 percent, and enabling Nissan Motor India to fetch the additional 40,000 units in export volumes for meeting its global headquarters’ business plan.

To introduce these new models for India, Renault Nissan Alliance, in February 2023, had announced to invest Rs 5,300 crore to support the upcoming new model projects that would drive more than 2,000 new jobs at the RNTBCI where these models are being engineered for both domestic as well as global markets.