Renault India expects sales to double compared to 2014

Company said launch of Lodgy is also starting of Renault 2.0

Automobile major Ranault is expecting its sales volume from India to double this year, from last year's domearic sales of 49,000 units. The company is expecting its market share to go up from the current nearly two percent to 5% by the end ofnext year, said Sumit Sawhney, country CEO and managing director, Renault India Operations.

Speaking to reporters after launching Renault's new MPV Lodgy in Chennai, Sawhney said that with the launch of Lodgy, the 3 company has entered into Renault 2.0, beginning the next phase of growth with integrated services including used car service, financing arm and one more design centre set up in the country. The company is also looking at digital platform for growth.

The company, which has its SUV model Duster as its first pillar, is expecting Lodgy as its second pillar of growth and more volumes to come from the sub-four meter small car, which would be the next launch from the company. This, along with the expansion in sales outlets would help the company in achieving the five per cent market share target it set earlier, by the end of 2016, he said.

"We will be doubling the volume this year, from what we sold last year," said Sawhney. He said the retail volume for 2014 was around 49,000 units.

The company currently has 157 sales outlets, which it is planning to expand to 205 by December, 2015 and 208 by end of next year. By end of next year, it will have around 305 service centres in the country, he said.

Renault is seeing potential in used car business and has started it on a pilot basis. The commercial launch to take it to a larger level, through the existing dealers, is expected to take place in next few months. Similarly, it has also launched Renault's Financial services arm in India recently, to provide a comprehensive service to the customer.

It has also launched a design centre in Chennai, apart from the one it has in Mumbai, in order to work along with the global design centres.

He said that the Lodgy is manufactured in the Chennai facility, and has 60 changes made compared to the global product Lodgy. While he refused to speak about the level of localisation in the product, he said that it has good level of localisation and it would like to have the per centage of localisation to the higher levels, prevailing in the industry.

Lodgy, on which the company is expecting to grow the market size in near future, is priced in the range of Rs 8.3 lakh to Rs 11.9 lakh ex showroom Chennai.

The company has recently increased its manufacturing capacity from four lakh units to 4.80 lakh units to meet the growth it is expecting in the near future. It has sold around 1.25 lakh Duster units so far.