Mumbai, Aug 3: Nissan Motor Co today unveiled its premium offering for the mid-size segment in India - the new Nissan ‘Sunny' - and also said it is studying the opportunity to launch a small car in the Indian market.
“We are launching the new saloon Sunny in October to coincide with the festive season. The petrol and diesel variant of the Nissan Sunny will be manufactured at the Renault Nissan alliance Orgadam facility in Chennai,” Nissan Motor India's Managing Director and Chief Executive, Kiminobu Tokuyama, told reporters here.
Nissan Sunny was designed at Nissan Design and Nissan Motor Co Ltd headquarters in Japan along with inputs from 170 countries, and it would be sold worldwide. It made its global debut at the 8th China (Guangzhou)International Automobile Exhibition last December.
The unveiling of the car reinstates company's seriousness on business operations in India and “reiterates that we are as per schedule on our Indian plans”, Tokuyama said. The 10th Generation Nissan Sunny is based on the popular V- (Versatile) platform, the one used in the Nissan Micra.
Sunny will help the company triple its local sales to 40,000 units in the current financial year, Tokuyama said. However, he did not reveal the price of the new car. The company sold 13,030 vehicles last fiscal, of which 12,000 were Micra models.
The Chennai unit is expected to expand production capacity to 400,000 vehicles a year by the middle of 2012 and the company plans to export half of them by the end of 2012, Tokuyama said.
Commenting on the future plans, Tokuyama said the company is studying opportunity to launch small cars in India. “We see great opportunity in the segment below Micra, a hatchback model,” he said.
Tokuyama also said the company is looking at launching MPV-category vehicle in a joint venture with Ashok Leyland. It will be similar to Toyota Innova model and will be launched in 2012, he said.
Speaking on the growing Nissan product portfolio, Dinesh Jain, CEO, Hover Automotive India, said, “We have built a robust chain of 40 dealerships nationwide in a period of over one year and we are on schedule to open 100 dealerships by end of 2012.” PTI
