Nissan Motor Co. plans to start selling its first small car in India from July and export the vehicle later this year as part of its strategy to make the country a global manufacturing hub, the chief executive of its local unit said Wednesday.
"We are well on track to open the new factory in March. Production will start in May and the first hatchback on the V platform will be sold from July," Kiminobu Tokuyama, who is also Nissan Motor India's managing director, told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview.
A small car will likely help Nissan to tap the growing Indian car market, where annual sales are forecast to nearly triple to three million vehicles by 2016.
Small cars, or hatchbacks, comprise nearly two-thirds of total car sales in India. Nissan's Japanese rival Suzuki Motor Corp. controls more than half of this market.
Nissan joins several other auto makers such as Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and Toyota Motor Co. who already sell small cars in India or plan to do so from this year.
"We see the Indian market as a growing market and we are very much focused on this market. At this moment, it is the most important market for Nissan after Russia and China," Mr. Tokuyama said.
Nissan aims to capture a 5.5% share in the Indian car market in the near term, he said, without giving a definite time frame.
The company plans to sell a total of nine models in India by 2012 of which five will be made locally while the remainder will be imported as fully-built units. Of the four imported automobiles, the company already sells the sport-utility vehicle X-Trail and the Teana sedan.
The company will first launch its small car with a gasoline engine and introduce a diesel variant in the subsequent three months.
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