Nissan to make India component sourcing hub

Nissan Motors is planning to make India a sourcing hub for components for its plants in East and Southeast Asia.

Kiminobu Tokuyama, managing director and CEO of Nissan Motors India, told reporters on Friday, “India will be export hub for components for our plants in Taiwan, Thailand and Japan.” For 2010, the company is planning to source $10 million worth of volume from India, which would be scaled up to $20 million by 2011 and $40 million by 2012.

“We have appointed 97 suppliers across India, some of whose products will be exported to overseas plants, “ Tokuyama said.
Among the parts Nissan Motors is planning to export from India are engine pistols, clutch discs and starter motors.

Meanwhile, the company will launch nine models in India by 2012. Five of these would be manufactured in India while  the others would be imported from Japan.

“Our first product would be a hatchback on the new V platform in May this year, from our upcoming plant near Chennai. It would be followed by a sedan on the same platform by 2011,” said Tokuyama.

The V platform, which is the new global compact car platform for Nissan, would also be used to manufacture the third car at the Chennai plant, details of which are currently been worked out.

Asked what would be the other two cars being produced in India, Tokuyama said, “We are yet to decide that.” He refused to divulge further details of the proposed compact car, except that it would be a petrol car and would have 85% localisation.

In the import segment, the cars are the Nissan Teana, X Train and Nissan 370Z which was launched recently.

Nissan has signed an MoU with the government of Tamil Nadu for the Chennai plant, at an investment of Rs 4,500 crore over the next seven years. The plant has an installed capacity of 2 lakh per year, and plans are to scale it up to 4 lakh over the next seven years.

Out of the installed capacity of 2 lakh vehicles from the Chennai plant per year, the company would initially export 1.1 lakh units to markets in Europe, West Asia and Africa.

“We are planning to achieve a 5% market share in India by 2012,” Tokuyama said.

Nissan on Friday opened eighth dealership in Pune.

The company currently has a network of 24 dealers across the country.