Indiantelevision.com Team

(20 April 2007 7:00 pm)

BANGALORE: Nissan Motor India (NMIPL) today announced the launch of its high end luxury sedan Teana (meaning ‘dawn’ in one of the American Indian languages).

Nissan plans to sell 350 of these vehicles along with another 250 X-Trails’. Till now, Nissan had only its SUV X-Trail to showcase. X-Trail has grown in sales to around 250 for the year ended 31 March, and a grand total of 600 of these luxury vehicles in the last three years. Of the 600, over 47 have been purchased in Bellary district of Karnataka alone.

The estimated 5,500 units per annum luxury sedan market has players such as Mercedes 'C' class, Toyota Camry, Honda Accord and the Skoda Superb, which Nissan will have to contend with to grab market share.

That is until their partner Renault’s manufacturing facility in Chennai is completed and then maybe Nissan could bring in CKD’s of small cars and grab a major chunk of the Indian car markets which pundits estimate would be around 2 million units by 2010.

That these plans are quite certain was averred to by NMIPL MD Ms Yoshie Motohiro, who is quite aware of their rival and global auto leader Toyota’s plans to bring in an offering in the small car segment into India soon.

"In the meantime, Nissan is playing on the price card as one of its strategies. Theirs is one of the least priced cars in its segment, and is targeting the tired busy executive in his 40’s and 50’s who would like to have some peace and quiet during the drive on the way home from work.

“The luxury car is marketed directly, by way of mailers and such, a few billboards and advertisement in niche publications, and that’s how we work at Nissan,” said NMIPL director – marketing & sales , Neeraj Garg.

The other aspect that Nissan is banking on is customer needs, which research has identified as – status, respect, relaxation, safety and self satisfaction. Nissan claims that the Teana meets all these qualifications.

The Teana is powered by the 2.3 Liter VQ23DE petrol engine mated to a four speed automatic transmission. The engine is a part of the VQ engine series that has been recognized as one of the ten best engines by Ward’s Auto World Magazine for the past 13 years.

The Teana was launched in Delhi yesterday and will be launched in Mumbai next. Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad are the main markets for high end luxury cars and Nissan have dealerships and service centers in these cities.