With Datsun redi-GO's production ceasing at the Chennai plant, Datsun's second lease of life in the country has come to a halt. Experts say they focussed so much on the price that they misjudged the market
Nissan has had a phenomenal year-and-a-half. Through the course of 2021, the company rediscovered the Indian market and saw its sales nearly triple—from 12,297 vehicles in FY21 to 33,684 cars in FY22. Much of that is thanks to the company’s recent launch, the Nissan Magnite, a compact SUV that had set the booking charts on fire and garnered bookings of over one lakh vehicles to date. Today, the company sells two SUVs, the Magnite and the Kicks, a mid-sized SUV, apart from its globally admired GT-R.
However, long before the company managed a turnaround in its fortunes, it had tried to capture the Indian market using the Datsun brand—launched with much fanfare in 2014. A low-cost vehicle meant for emerging markets, the brand was revived after two decades to capitalise on the small-car boom in India. The company had launched its entry-level car, Datsun Go, priced between Rs3.12 lakh and Rs3.7 lakh in the country.