Nissan Motor Corporation a company known for its SUVs conquered US sales volumes in 2014 was perceived to be one of the most valuable automobile brand. The story of Nissan is a corporate suspense thriller with many ups and downs. Nissan conquered may continents with its fantastic, alluring and empowering passenger vehicles. Nissan was marked for its looks, build quality, power and mileage. The premium models of Nissan Motors were rockets on ground that roughed many world racing circuits.
Nissan India entry in 2005 was
an attempt to extend aura of Nissan created around the world. Initially
Nissan imported X Tail and other models and sold. 2011 the
Renault-Nissan-Mitusbishi alliance had rolled out Desi Nissan Micra from its
oragadam Chennai plant to introduce Nissan mark cars to the price and petrol conscious
Indian consumer. Nissan Micra was one of the best selling cars in that segment
for many years. Nissan introduced many other cars from X-Trail, Nissan
Teana, Nissan 370Z premium models and manufactured most loved car brands
like Nissan Micra, Nissan Sunny and Nissan Evalia specifically for Indian
market. These cars had garnered lot of volumes and value to Nissan brand in
India. However the brand from “land of rising Sun” couldn’t make a mark with
Indian consumer and India automobile industry, with around 1% share in Indian
market Nissan always struggled to join the big league of automakers in India.
Every moderately knowledgeable consumer acknowledged that Nissan brand has
Unique, Uber cool and best in class car models but that appreciation couldn’t
covert in buying Nissan car.
Nissan’s presence was seldom felt
beyond 40 cities as it couldn’t penetrate the core consumer nerve centers; 8000
small towns. Indian consumer always looked for location proximity of dealer and
service network, spare parts affordability which never worked in favour of
Nissan. Initially with imports the cost of maintenance was felt to be high,
Nissan cars are perceived to be fantastic till it is in running condition, if
something gone wrong the cost of repair and maintenance used to be headache for
customers. This consistent aversion to Nissan cars had pushed Nissan to rethink
on whether it has to continue in Indian market or continue it’s struggle in
already diminished market segment.
However fortunes were destined to
the best, Nissan has bought in Mr. Rakesh Srivastava, man who bought volumes to
Hyundai and made it second best passenger car brand in India. To arm him Nissan
Japan had given him the all new Nissan Magnite. 2020 was the dark year of
century ravaged by covid 19, however reeling this pendamic Nissan India quietly
set the things for launch of Nissan Magnite. Magnite was pepped up against the
mights of Vitara brezza, Hyundai Venue and highly successful Kia Sonet. People
believed that Nissan will do something different with Magnite to claim its
footage in Indian market but fears were there on how customer will respond as
its previous launch Nissan Kicks was not that successful. Beating all the odds
Nissan magnite created a rampage in booking, garnered 35000 booking in one
month the highest bookings volumes in this segment and one of the best numbers
to the awe of many of it’s competitors.
Today two factors are behind Nissan resurgence
1. Rakesh Srivastava who bought immense confidence behind Nissan India brand and developed better dealership network pan India.
2. Nissan Magnite, the big, bold and beautiful compact SUV. For now Nissan India is busy to address it’s domestic demand and enjoy the positive vibes it created in International markets.
However one product cannot win market, Nissan’s future will depend on what products it will bring in and how successful they will stand in immensely competitive automobile segment.
One thing is sure that Nissan will win big once “Nissan India wins customers in tier II and tier III cities by developing deep network and service locations”. Part of Nissan electric mobility strategy Nissan electric vehicles are bringing great numbers to Nissan Motor corporation.
India automobile market is also upbeat with success of Tata Nexon EV and MG EV which has immense potential to take early lead if Nissan EV line up is rightly placed in the market.
As a proud Nissan Magnite owner I
wish to see Nissan making to top 5 automobile brands in India.
