Nissan aims to double sales network to 300 outlets by 2016-end

Japanese car maker Nissan is looking to double its sales network in India to around 300 dealerships in the next two years with almost 50 per cent of the new outlets in smaller cities and towns.
"We plan to double our dealership network by the end of next year. This is our vision. Apart from big cities we are also working hard to establish presence in tier II and tier III towns," Nissan India Operations President Guillaume Sicard told PTI.
The company, which today opened its 160th dealership here today, aims to have around 50 per cent of the dealerships in smaller towns by 2016-end.

"We want to focus on bigger cities with Nissan brand and Datsun vehicles will primarily target smaller towns and peripheries of bigger cities," Sicard said.
When asked about the time-frame for establishing separate dealerships for the two brands, Sicard said: "It won't happen before five years."
Commenting on new product launches, he said there is no concrete plan as far as Nissan brand is concerned in the next few months.

"As far as Datsun brand is concerned we had said that we would launch three cars in the country. We have already launched two and and the third would be introduced in the next two years," Sicard said.

Two years is the maximum time frame for the launch of the third model, he added.
Besides two products under Datsun brand-- Go and Go+ Nissan sells SUV Terrano, mid-sized sedan Sunny and compact car Micra, among others.
Last year, when Nissan launched the Datsun Go in India, marking the global comeback of the brand after nearly three decades, it had said that it was aiming to garner 10 per cent share in the Indian passenger vehicles market by 2016.
So far in the April-December period this fiscal, according to Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) passenger vehicle sales were at 18,94,932 units, up 3.67 per cent from 18,27,866 units in the same period last fiscal.

Nissan's total passenger vehicle sales during the same period this fiscal stood at 35,042 units as against 23,927 units in the year-ago period.