Nissan to be the Group’s primary brand over Datsun in India

Indian arm of Japanese passenger vehicle maker, Nissan Group of India, today made an announcement that it would make Nissan, one of the two umbrella brands it operates in the country as the primary brand, with Datsun being held a little behind.

The company says that going forward, it would have more focus on bringing new models under the Nissan brand and will upgrade the value proposition of the Datsun models to suit the customer needs in India.

Rakesh Srivastava, managing director, Nissan Motor India, said, “We would like to increase our commitment to the Indian market and we look forward to making Nissan the primary brand in the Indian market with multiple new premium products to going to come under the Nissan brand.”

He added that, “Datsun, however, will continue to be part of the entire product portfolio and we will strengthen the value proposition of the Datsun products and will bring features for instance, the CVT automatic transmission as one of the technologies for which we find good opportunity in India.”

New sub-compact SUV in 2020
Speaking on future launches, Srivastava revealed that “We would like to build our SUV portfolio in India and introduce a new product under Nissan in the B-SUV segment. This is going to be a product designed in Japan, with insights from the Indian design centre. This would be a made-in-India product and we would evaluate exports in times to come. The product has been under development for the last two years.”

The company hasn’t disclosed any specifications or features related to the product just yet and says that it aims to launch it in the Indian market between April and September 2020. It will be interesting to see how Nissan revives its sales in India in times of aggressive competition when relatively successful players such Kia Motors India also planning to bring a subcompact SUV in the second half of this year.