Nissan India, Tata Motors expect near-flat industry growth in FY19

Automotive makers Nissan India and Tata Motors are expecting a near-flat growth during the current financial year, company officials said recently. "In the current fiscal, the automotive industry is expected to witness flat growth," president of Nissan Motor India, Thomas Kuehl, said. In India, the company would follow the two-brand strategy of Datsun and Nissan, he said. "While Datsun will focus on the volume segment, Nissan on the premium end of the market," he said at the launch of the SUV 'Kicks' in India.

The company would launch its electric car 'Leaf' in the next six months, Kuehl said, adding, all the models would conform to the BS-VI emission standards.

He said that Nissan India, which has seven models across the Datsun and Nissan brands, has stopped the manufacture of SUV 'Terrano'. The company, he said, has invested nearly $1 billion in India.

Meanwhile, Tata Motors VP (sales, marketing and support) S N Barman said the industry is likely to grow by two to three per cent in the 2018-19 fiscal as against the initial prediction of seven per cent. In the third quarter of this fiscal, the industry saw a degrowth of seven per cent.

Last week, home-grown auto major Tata Motors had launched its most-awaited premium mid-size sports utility vehicle (SUV) in diesel, Tata Harrier in the domestic market at starting price of Rs 12.69 lakh (ex-showroom Mumbai). Built around Tata's Impact Design 2.0 at the company's new manufacturing line at the Pune facility, the five-seater SUV has a lot of the design features from the concept car, H5X that was showcased at the 2018 Auto Expo.

As per SIAM, the passenger vehicles sales grew by 4.37 per cent in April-December 2018 over the same period last year. Of this, the sale of passenger cars grew by 4.34 per cent while the utility vehicle segment logged 2.63 per cent growth. The sale of vans grew by 12.89 per cent in April-December period of last year over the period year-ago.