Renault plans to position its cars above Nissan’s line up in India!

Renault India will position all its cars above the ones sold by Nissan, in a bid to ensure that the two brands do not become direct competitors by cannibalizing each others’ sales. French automaker Renault has a stake of over 40% in the Japanese automaker Nissan, which has a 15% stake in Renault. Together these brands have been developing joint platforms, much like the Volkswagen group does for its range of car brands under the VeeDub umbrella. In India, Renault-Nissan have a joint manufacturing facility, where Renault and Nissan cars are built alongside each other.

2012 Renault Fluence Diesel Sedan

Nissan first entered India in 2005, with Renault coming along only in 2011. The two segments in which both Renault and Nissan operate in, are the B-hatchback segment and the luxury SUV segment. In the B-hatchback segment, Renault and Nissan sell the Pulse and Micra respectively while the luxury segment has Nissan selling the X-trail SUV and Renault selling the Koleos crossover.

Later this year, Renault will launch a C-segment sedan based on the Nissan Sunny. But since, Renault and Nissan are alliance partners, it is important for both the brands to have a clear differentiation in their products. Therefore, Renault will price all its products at a significant premium over Nissan’s products, to create enough room for both the automakers’ products to co-exist.

2012 Renault Koleos Crossover SUV

While there is bound to be some amount of cannibalization, Renault-Nissan it seems are planning to emulate the Volkswagen-Skoda model, in which Volkswagen cars are positioned above Skoda cars in terms of pricing. Meanwhile, here’s Marc Nassif, Managing Director of Renault India, explaining Renault’s pricing strategy for the Indian car market,

We are sharing the Chennai facility with Nissan just to get the economies of scale effect. We have launched Pulse on the Nissan’s Micra platform just to get into the hatchback segment in India. We do not intend to battle Nissan on the price front. We are present in the Rs 4 lakh segment and above. We are keen to enter the sub-Rs 4 lakh segment. We want to touch the 1 lakh sales mark in 2013.

Via TheEconomicTimes

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