Shiro Nakamura (right), senior vice president of Datsun and Vincent Cobee, corporate
vice president and head of the Datsun business unit, pose as they unveil the Datsun Redi-Go concept car during the Indian auto expo in New Delhi yesterday.
Reuters/AFP/Greater Noida, India
Global car manufacturers jostled for attention at the opening of the Indian auto expo yesterday, attempting to revive buyers’ interest in a local market that is contracting for the first time in a decade.
The giant show on the outskirts of the capital will be used to launch 69 new vehicles for the Indian market, which local and foreign carmakers still see as a future growth centre despite its present-day woes.
“The first month of 2014 did not witness any improvement in the overall industry performance and the situation remains subdued,” said Pravin Shah, head of the auto division of Indian manufacturer Mahindra.
“We hope the auto expo, which will showcase new products and technology, will provide a trigger in giving a much needed boost to the auto industry and overall sentiment,” he added.
Last year car sales fell nearly 10% on an annual basis, the first fall in 11 years, and few see the prospect of a turnaround before national elections due by the end of May.
Sales have been hit by a combination of slowing economic growth, high interest rates, rising fuel prices and low consumer confidence. “We have no concern in the long term as incomes increase,” head of commercial vehicles at Tata Motors, Ravi Pisharody, told AFP. “The long term will be strong.... (but) there are uncertainties until elections.”
Despite a decade of often double-digit growth in annual sales, India counts just 16 cars per 1,000 inhabitants, compared with 39 in China or 1,000 in the US, according to industry figures.
And while the general car market is contracting, the top end dominated by Western luxury brands is still growing strongly, analysts say.
Meanwhile, Nissan Motor said it will start selling its resurrected Datsun brand in India next month, picking the world’s sixth-largest auto market to debut the car targeted at emerging economies. The Datsun Go hatchback is expected to cost less than Rs400,000 ($6,400), competing with inexpensive cars from Indian car market leader Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai Motor Co.
“Our plan is to launch Datsun Go in India in the second half of March,” Nissan Motor’s Corporate Vice President Vincent Cobee, who heads the Datsun business unit, told Reuters yesterday on the sidelines of the Indian auto show.
The Datsun Go will go on sale in Indonesia sometime in the spring this year, Cobee said, and then in Russia and South Africa before the end of the year. Almost three decades after retiring the Datsun, Nissan said in 2012 that it would relaunch the brand.
France’s Renault said it may launch a car priced below Rs450,000 ($7,200) in India, a senior executive said on Monday, as the company looks to tap the biggest and fastest growing segment of the Indian car market.
“Half of the market we are not addressing. What is happening below Rs450,000, we don’t have any cars so that’s a big space,” Marc Nassif, head of Renault’s India operations told Reuters at the auto show.
US motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson Motor Company yesterday launched a new Rs410,000 ($6,560) model for the Indian market, its cheapest model so far. The Street 750, unveiled at the annual Delhi auto expo, would be built at the company’s facility in Bawana in the northern Indian state of Haryana and also exported to select international markets, a spokeswoman said.
Powered by a V-Twin engine designed for urban riding, the model would be the firm’s first product to be manufactured outside the US, Ankita Lal said.
“We believe the new Street 750 will excite a new segment of urban riders in India who will appreciate the ... opportunity to experience the Harley-Davidson lifestyle at an accessible price point,” said Anoop Prakash, managing director of Harley-Davidson India.
