New Delhi: Buoyed by crossing of five lakh cumulative car export milestone from India, Japan's auto major Nissan is looking to enhance its status as one of the country's top automobiles exporters. Nissan Motor India, the company's subsidiary here, which exported 1.2 lakh units last fiscal is looking to at least maintain the same number this year as the European and the Middle-East markets remained a concern. "When we started operations in India eight years back we looked at the possibility of not only addressing domestic requirements but also for exports, as we needed to achieve economy of scale.
Today we have justified that strategy," said Nissan India Operations President Guillaume Sicard. Nissan began exporting from India five years ago and it at present ships to over 106 countries. Korean auto major Hyundai is the largest car exporter from India. Commenting on the road ahead, he said: "Today we are the second-largest car exporter from India, our model Micra is the most exported model from India and we look to enhance our position. We are always looking for new customers globally."
When asked about this year's targets, said Sicard: "We are looking to maintain last year's export numbers, if not more. If we are able to do more would depend on how the European and the Middle-East markets recover." "While exports help us in optimal utilisation of our manufacturing capacity, it also helps showcase world-class Indian production quality on the global stage and expand the scope for widening export base for India-built cars," he added.
The Renault-Nissan Alliance has invested Rs 4,500 crore at the Chennai plant, which has a capacity to roll out 4.8 lakh vehicles annually. "Currently, we are exporting 60 per cent of our volumes and 40 per cent is sold in the domestic market but it will soon become 50:50," Sicard said. Nissan has been exporting vehicles to various regions including Europe, Middle-East, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Asia and Africa.
According to the company, while premium hatchback Micra constitutes 73 per cent of exports from India, mid-sized Sunny and entry-level car Datsun Go are the other two export models from Nissan portfolio. The company started exporting Datsun GO in 2014 to South Africa and Nepal.
