Nissan’s global cuts has put Datsun brand in a limbo
CHENNAI: There’s a question mark over the future of the Datsun brand globally as reports in Japan and Europe suggest that Japanese auto major Nissan may phase out the Datsun brand across the world as part of its 300 billion yen or $2.8 billion cuts to tide over the current crisis.
This puts Nissan India’s affordable small car strategy with the Datsun brand under cloud. When contacted, a Nissan India spokesman said: “Nissan will announce a revised midterm plan along with fiscal year 2019 financial results on May 28. We do not have any further comments on this subject.”
Nissan India launched the Datsun brand in 2014 along with three other key global markets — Indonesia, Russia and South Africa. Out of these, Nissan has already stopped manufacturing Datsun cars in Indonesia and South Africa is largely serviced by exports from Nissan’s Oragadam factory in the outskirts of Chennai. In the financial year 2019-20, Nissan India exported 76,000 cars, up nearly 40% over the 57,000 units exported the year before.
A pet project of Nissan-Renault’s former CEO Carlos Ghosn, the Datsun revival started well with the brand selling 16,076 units in India in 2014-15 compared to just over 31,000 units of Nissan-branded vehicles. However, by 2017-18, its fortunes took a downturn as sales dropped by 8% to 40,490 units. Over the next 10 months Datsun sales dropped by more than 60% to 27,070 units. Between April 2019 to March 2020, Datsun clocked a total 12974 units in sales. The company has just launched its BS6 Datsun GO and GO+ CVT-equipped (continuously variable transmission) cars and will roll out the next-gen Redi GO shortly.
This puts Nissan India’s affordable small car strategy with the Datsun brand under cloud. When contacted, a Nissan India spokesman said: “Nissan will announce a revised midterm plan along with fiscal year 2019 financial results on May 28. We do not have any further comments on this subject.”
Nissan India launched the Datsun brand in 2014 along with three other key global markets — Indonesia, Russia and South Africa. Out of these, Nissan has already stopped manufacturing Datsun cars in Indonesia and South Africa is largely serviced by exports from Nissan’s Oragadam factory in the outskirts of Chennai. In the financial year 2019-20, Nissan India exported 76,000 cars, up nearly 40% over the 57,000 units exported the year before.
A pet project of Nissan-Renault’s former CEO Carlos Ghosn, the Datsun revival started well with the brand selling 16,076 units in India in 2014-15 compared to just over 31,000 units of Nissan-branded vehicles. However, by 2017-18, its fortunes took a downturn as sales dropped by 8% to 40,490 units. Over the next 10 months Datsun sales dropped by more than 60% to 27,070 units. Between April 2019 to March 2020, Datsun clocked a total 12974 units in sales. The company has just launched its BS6 Datsun GO and GO+ CVT-equipped (continuously variable transmission) cars and will roll out the next-gen Redi GO shortly.
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