Nissan India on Tuesday said it needs to improve the brand image, at least on the Datsun front, to make the share between exports and domestic sales more balanced. The company needs more products to achieve a 5% market share by 2020, said Nissan India president Guillaume Sicard.

Speaking to reporters after announcing the milestone achievement of 5,00,000 cars export in its fifth year of operations in India at the Ennore Port site, Sicard said: “Though we have become the second largest exporter of cars in India after Hyundai, the Nissan/Datsun brand in India stands at sixth or seventh spot. We want to be in top 3 by 2020. It requires more awareness about the brand, particularly the Datsun, to enable us to achieve 5% market share of the projected 6 million units by 2020. It also calls for more products.”

“We will launch a small car under Renault-Nisssan Alliance’s CMF-A platform in the first half of  2016 under Datsun brand, followed by another car under Nissan brand in later part of the year. One can expect more cars to come under these brands. We will also add 100 more dealerships in next 2 years to take it to 300,” he said.

A few days ago, Renault had introduced ‘Kwid’, a small compact hatchback under CMF-A platform powered by 800cc engine. On the task to balance the exports and domestic sales, Sicard said: “At present, exports take away 65% of our total production (Nissan) and the rest goes into domestic sales. This is because, our brand, compared with market leader and others, is lesser known in India. Morever, Micra and Sunny have been well accepted in the Europe and West Asia, respectively, because of their long presence globally. In fact, of the 5,00,000 units exported in last 5 years, in FY15, we have execeeded our previous fiscal figure of 1,00,000 mark to cross 1.2 lakh, and we hope to retain or do more in the current fiscal. We don’t see exports and local sales balancing in two to three years, however, our focus will be more on domestic front in the years to come to achieve our target of 5% market share.”

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