Nissan Micra gets ready for booking!

Japanese carmaker Nissan said on Tuesday it will launch its Micra small car in the Indian market in July from a plant in the south co-owned with its French partner Renault.

"We will produce 80,000 units of Micra in the first 12 months beginning in May," Renault Nissan Automotive managing director Akira Sakurai said, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

The Micra was unveiled earlier this year at the Geneva auto show.

The Franco-Japanese carmaking alliance on Tuesday confirmed plans for another small car in the future, with its local partner, motorcycle and scooter manufacturer Bajaj Auto.

"We have room for another product, a small car, with Bajaj. This would be not just for Indian markets but for emerging markets too," Carlos Ghosn, chief executive of Renault-Nissan, said.

"The Micra will be competitive in terms of price and features with other Indian cars," Ghosn told media at a press conference in Chennai, where the car will be manufactured.

"To compete in India one must manufacture and source components locally, and meet Indian consumer needs," Ghosn added.

Nissan sold between 200 and 300 cars in India last year, all imported.

India and its 1.2 billion-strong population is a huge draw because of the low number of car owners.

Several automakers including Ford, Toyota and Honda are in the race to launch small cars in India in the next two years, to rival the Tata group's Nano, dubbed the "world's cheapest car" at 100,000 rupees (2,200 dollars).

Just eight per 1,000 Indians own a car, compared with 550 per 1,000 in Germany and 495 in France.

The Indian auto market is forecast to triple over the next decade to six million cars a year from the current two million.

The cars to be put on display across showrooms in India from May 25, will also be available for bookings at the same time.

The car to be produced from India and exported to Europe, Middle East and Asia in designed in keeping in mind the discerning consumer needs of India.

Ford India to phase out Fusion superhatch

On the sidelines of announcing its dealership rollout pan-India, Ford India Private Limited (FIPL) has stated that it has firmed up its plans to phase out its not-so-successful car, Fusion in the medium term, without revealing any timeframe. The Fusion was launched in the Indian market in 2004 and is available in three variants and the company had promoted it as a combination of a hatchback and sports utility vehicle.



"We will discontinue the Fusion and our focus in the small car segment will be exclusively on Figo in the Indian market. The Fusion was also giving us a relatively small volume and we hope to do well with the Figo," Ford India managing director and President Michael Boneham told reporters in New Delhi. He also maintained that the phasing out is part of a product rationalisation strategy with the firm looking to focus on the compact car segment, which comprises over 70 per cent of the Indian car market that is heading towards the two million mark per year. He said the Figo would be positioned in the small-car segment, competing with cars from the Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai Motor India and Tata Motors stables. He told reporters, “After all, this segment constitutes the bulk of the market and even a 10 per cent annual growth would mean a huge addition to demand.” He did not believe that the premium hatchback segment was the place to be in, given its smaller numbers.

Meanwhile, as Ford India gears up to launch the small hatchback Figo, it has said that it will launch a new car every 12-18 months for the next few years. The Indian arm of the Detroit auto biggie affirmed that that it is better to be a volume player in the country, for which being aggressive in the small-car segment is the way forward. Ahead of its ambitious entry into the compact car segment, the company’s Indian subsidiary Ford India, on Tuesday opened 28 dealerships across 24 cities in the country, with small cities (Tier-II, III) as the main target market growth.

“What we are planning to do here is launch a new car every 12 to 18 months,” Michael Boneham, told reporters recently. Nearly 70 per cent of all cars sold in the country fall in the small car segment. “For us the majority of new launches will be in that segment across the next four to five years,” he said.

Nissan Targeting Nano Customers

While we were writing about the Nissan small car that the company was planning to launch in India, Thailand, and China, little did we know that Nissan was in fact targeting the Nano. Nissan wants to break the vivid market, which the Tata Nano has managed to build.

We would not be surprised, this could be the dream of any car maker, such is the acceptance of Nano not only in India but throughout the world. Nano has been stealing the limelight for long now and Nissan wants to substitute itself with the little wonder, Nano. The new small car from Nissan will be launched in March 2010. But it is expected that, for the car to come to India, it will take another two months since its launch in March.

The new small car from Nissan is named V, where V stands for Versatility. And Nissan is expected to sell one million Vs by 2013.

There are other car makers whom we thought would launch cars so that they can compete with the customers' favorite Nano. But breaking our expectations, Fiat recently denied any plans of the company to launch ultra-cheap cars. Now we will all set out hopes on Nissan.

Thinking deep about what in Nano lures the customers, anyone would say, the price. And so Nissan also focuses on the pricing, which the company believes will win over the customers.