If a car is successful in India, it will work fine anywhere in the world

Renault-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn had come down to India for the global unveiling of the Datsun brand. Selected media had an opportunity to interact with him on the Datsun brand and the CMF-A platform, on which the Nano competition will be built. We were one of the lucky people who got a chance to speak to him and learn about Renault-Nissan Alliance’s future plans for India.

Q1) We learn that you were a mathematics teacher, on what model/calculation did you come to the conclusion that India is a high growth market, considering the fact that our growth has slowed down?

Ans) The answer is simple, very simple. You need to see the optimistic part, and the only calculation is that India at the moment has only 15 cars per 1000 people, which when compared to China is 60-80, Europe is also about 500 and the highest at the moment is United States at about 800. We have done our research studies and this market has a lot of potential in it, and we are confident about it.

Q2) The common module platform is becoming popular in the Renault-Nissan Alliance. Will it play a major role in India also?

Ans) The Alliance will launch the first car from the CMF-A platform in 2015, and then it will be leveraged by all the three brands under the Alliance umbrella. I cannot name which will be the first brand, but there will be two models coming to begin with. The Renault Nissan Technical centre in Chennai is second to no other engineering centres across the globe, and we have learnt to develop frugal engineering products. And if a car is successful in India, it will work fine anywhere in the world. This is why the Renault Nissan Technical Centre is so important not only to India, but to the world.

Q3) What is frugal engineering in your words?

Ans) We have learnt the term frugal engineering from India. This is a technique to reduce cost without actually hampering the quality of the product. This helps us to be more competitive in the Indian local market. Sometimes the reduction in cost is a good 95% percentage, which means the pricing is down to 1/20 of the original expected cost.

Q4) What sort of growth is Renault Nissan looking in this year, when it comes to numbers?

Ans) Renault India at the moment has a goal of 70,000 units to be sold annually, while Nissan India is looking at 100,000 units for this year. Our goal is to capture 15% of the Indian market share, with 5% to Renault and the 10% with Nissan-Datsun. There will be an equal split of 5% between Nissan and Datsun too.

Q5) Is Renault-Nissan planning to introduce low-cost cars and gain the market share?

Ans) It is confusing to answer what low cost car means and it is even difficult to tell someone the timeline to having a market share. For instance, the Duster is a low cost car in Europe, while it is sold as a premium SUV in markets like India and Brazil. Speaking of the market share, in the long term the Alliance needs a 15 per cent market share because we expect to sell 600,000 cars here.

Read More on : Datsun GO 2013