Kenichiro
Yomura, President of Nissan India Operations & Managing Director and CEO,
Nissan Motor India Pvt Ltd joined Nissan Motor Company just after college in
1982. He has been with the company for the last 32 years. Tough situations do
not unsettle him.
“I
always believed that if you want to climb a tall mountain, there will be peaks
and valleys, and all kinds of hurdles. In India also it is similar and in the
last two years the markets have not been good and I am not surprised,” says
Yomura in an exclusive interview with Motown India at his corporate office
in Chennai.
When
he headed Nissan in China in 2004, the car market was very difficult and he and
his team had to struggle a lot. “This was because of a lot of entrants in the
car market including our company,” recalls Yomura. But then the Chinese
experience was a different one for him. “This market started from a small car.
In case of China, you find a lot of rich people, hence their preference for
bigger cars. It is a status symbol for them. They import a lot of big cars. It
is a different story in India,” he says.
To
begin with, Yomura admits that his company has gone way off its projected sales
target. “A year ago I was saying 100000 sales is our target but we end up
around 40pc of that figure,” he confesses. He had also maintained that by 2017
his company would have a 10pc share in the Indian car market. “We take reality
as a starting point, and if we are going to continue to chase for the 10pc by
2017 then we need to grow three times for the remaining years. That never
happens. We reviewed ourselves seriously and our 10pc aspiration has not
changed. Nissan combined with Datsun will become a major player in India
definitely. The 10pc will be an important milestone,” he feels.
For
the financial year 2013-14, Nissan India sold 38,217 units of cars as compared
to 36,975 units in the previous fiscal, thereby registering a 3.4pc growth.
Nissan Terrano was the biggest contributor to sales, achieving 14,998 units
since its launch in October 2013. The Micra range comprising Micra Active and
Micra hatchbacks sold 12,595 units while the recently launched Datsun GO
contributed 2,072 units within just 10 days of its national launch
But
there is a silver lining in every dark cloud. Nissan registered sales of 7,019
units in March 2014 against 2,125 units last year, accounting for a massive
230pc growth over the same period. There is a reason to shed off the existing
gloominess. There is hope in the newly launched Datsun brand in India.
Read detailed report in April 2014 issue of
Motown India magazine
Photography: Mohd. Nasir