Nissan aims to sell 80,000 units by March 2011

Japanese automaker Nissan aims to sell 80,000 units by March 2011, a top company official said here today.

The company which inaugurated its manufacturing facility at Oragadam near here along with its joint venture partner Renault with an investment of Rs 45 billion over a seven year period currently produces hatchback Nissan Micra with a capacity of two lakh units.

"In this fiscal, we have planned to produce 80,000 units both in the domestic and exports...", Nissan Motor India Managing Director and CEO Kiminobu Tokuyama told reporters here after unveiling the diesel variant of Micra.

Currently, Nissan motors besides catering to the domestic market also exports to European markets, he said.

The company in July began producing the Micra range of vehicles in the domestic and overseas market. "So far, in domestic market around 6,000 units are sold and 15,000 units in overseas market", company officials said.

Besides the company hopes to increase its exports of auto components to over USD 25 million.

On their future plans, Kiminobu said they would showcase the Sedan manufactured from the Micra platform in the forthcoming China International Motor Show. "We are expanding our product pipeline, the Sedan would be launched first in China International Motor Show... In India, we will launch it in the second half of 2011...."he said.

Besides he said along with their partnership with commercial vehicle maker Ashok Leyland they would launch a Multi-Purpose Vehicle by 2012.

Hover Automotive India CEO Deepak Jain, who handles the sales and marketing of Nissan cars in India said they have got bookings of 8,000 cars in India since July.

The diesel variant Micra launched today is priced at Rs 5.58 lakh (ex-showroom Chennai) for the base model and Rs 6.04 lakh (ex-showroom Chennai) for the top model, he added.