Datsun to get independent dealerships in India

After getting a lukewarm response from the Indian buyers, Nissan is now planning to build a separate dealership network for its recently revived brand. The manufacturer aims at having 200 dealerships by the end of this fiscal year, which will be followed by another 100 in the next two years. Pitched against Hyundai Eon and Maruti Suzuki Alto, currently GO have been retailing around 2,000 - 2,500 units a month, which is several times less than the competitors. 

While launching the new Sunny, Andy Palmer, chief planning officer at Nissan Motor and the second in command to CEO Carlos Ghosn, admitted that “The GO sales have not met the expectation due to a smaller dealer network. He said the company has the potential of selling at least 4,000-5,000 of the cars a month, which could still be possible once the entire dealer network comes on board.”

"Product attribute wise it is well appreciated. The only reason for the lower-than-expected number is the distribution, "Palmer said. "Earlier (before the Hover breakup), at the time of launch, we had expected a coverage of 90% of the market, but we are nowhere near that. We are putting in place our marketing team and dealership network. We are confident of Datsun's future here."

The next Datsun-badged offering- GO+ is a multipurpose vehicle, will most probably hit the showrooms in next couple of months. Furthermore, Datsun will witness another addition to its family in 2015. Codenamed as i2, the car will be an entry-level offering which will be positioned below GO.

With the incremental volumes of on-going Datsun Go, updated Sunny, and upcoming Go+ MPV, which is expected to be priced aggressively, Nissan hopes to double its sales figures in the country to almost 75,000 to 80,000 cars annually.

Source : ET