[SmartCat]

Nothing new in the article, but an interesting read anyway - especially the comparison between the India strategy of the two French companies Peugeot and Renault.

Renault is back with a bang: What’s the secret weapon? | Firstpost

Two carmakers, two tales. While Peugeot has decided to halt its India plans, after a brief interest, Renault is speeding ahead despite the unpleasant baggage of the Logan. What do we make out of them? For Peugeot, investing in India might be a bad idea, but for Renault, India is the happening place, the ‘preferred destination’.

Peugeot Citroen, Europe’s second largest car maker, recently announced that it was setting up a Rs 4,000-crore plant in Sanand, Gujarat that planned on rolling out 170,000 cars including its high-end 508 sedans by 2014. Although it wasn’t doing too badly in terms of sale in China and Russia, it suddenly announced that it was scrapping its Sanand plans on account of worsening economic conditions in Europe. Business Standard reported that this is the second time Peugeot has stalled in India—the first was in 1993 when they left after a labour dispute with Indian partner Premier.

Renault, too hasn’t had much luck doing business in India. The Logan Sedan, Renault’s joint venture with Mahindra & Mahindra ended in quite a disaster. But Renault’s notquitting. Renault says that it wants to put 100,000 of their cars into the hands of Indian drivers by 2013 which is an aggressive target by any standards. The famous French carmakers know that they have to face fierce competitors like General Motors and Volkswagen, amongst others, who are already well entrenched. Still, it feels that it can set itself apart from them.

[shankar.balan]

Renault has that Nissan card up its sleeve and Peugeot doesnt have anything similar, to be able to handle the India scene.
Thats my guess as to the "secret weapon"!

Originally Posted by smartcat

Nothing new in the article, but an interesting read anyway - especially the comparison between the India strategy of the two French companies Peugeot and Renault.

Renault is back with a bang: What’s the secret weapon? | Firstpost

[hubolt]

Well Renault is playing it marketing screws again!! The writer heard the "bang". No one on this forum has, so far, and going by the monthly sale figures and Renaults product positioning, they must be using headphones plugged to the writer's ears instead of full blooded loudspeakers.

C'mon Renault, we all want to hear the "Bang".

Nissan as a card alright but, but things seem to be looking slightly better for Nissan only after the Sunny diesel. As long a Renault is playing the Nissan card, well it will still be Renault. Nissan needs to play Nissan's card. Franco recipes using japanese technology for Indian appetites just won't work.

If they want to use India as an export base for European appetities then that's another matter.

[GTO]

The article is very misguiding, to say the least. Renault hardly has any kind of presence in the Indian marketplace. It's Nissan that takes the honours. And that's due to the exports. Nissan intended to make Chennai an export hub for the Micra, and the Export : Indian sales ratio for the hatchback were 9:1 (last I checked).

The article says:

The Renault-Nissan car plant near Chennai is set to nearly double its output for the third year with a production of 250,000 cars this year.

but completely fails to mention that a large part of this production will be making its way overseas.

In the 4 months of 2012:

Nissan Average monthly sales are less than 5,000.

Renault Average monthly sales are less than 800!

Back with a bang? RUBBISH! In fact, the article should have focused on Renault's FLAWED strategy with the Pulse (whose identical sister, the Micra, sells 3 - 4 times more) and the Fluence (launched with a barebones diesel for 16 lakh). Renault India is looking completely direction-less right now.

[noopster]

Selling 100,000 units in India by 2013 is hardly an ambitious target to start with! Renault-Nissan are already a quarter-way there, from GTO's figures above.

This article is pure PR bilge and little more. I love the way the author says with a (metaphorical) straight face:

The success of Renault’s India venture lies in its unique agreement with Nissan inked in March 1999, where the two share resources and explore synergies in purchasing, engineering, production and distribution in order to enhance productivity, according to Business Standard.

Success eh?

[SmartCat]

By the way, FirstPost.com is a 12 month old news website that is known to publish supposedly hard-hitting but always controversial articles.

Anyway, the current lineup of cars from Renault is not French enough - Koleos (based on Nissan X-trail), Fluence (mostly sold only in Latin America, Turkey & Korea), Duster (from Dacia) & Pulse (Nissan Micra). Renault could add some pizzazz into their portfolio by bringing in cars that are sold in Europe - Twingo, Clio, Megane, Scenic etc.

[scopriobharath]

Renault's back with a bang - but that bang is the sound of a gunshot from Renault's competitors

First thing that Renault must concenrate upon is brand-building. There are so many people who do not know renault more than Logan Meru Taxis.

Renault's biggest mistake is that its initial image itself was into Taxi Market a.k.a Indica/eeco. A person seeking an SUV/premium Sedan (Koleos / Fluence) will definetly look up brand value.

Secondly, Service stations are far and few. Its even fewer than Nissan. Renault must build an equally good and robust service station. It must target one service station at least every 350 kms. Even if the product is as reliable as a rolls-royce, the psycology factor of peace of mind of hearing the fact about service center network is most appealing to customers.

Renault must concenrate on the following

• Brand building
• Service center network
• Frequnent display of its models in prime places (Malls / Electronic Parks etc)
• 5 year warranty
• First in Segment Features

[Ricky_63]

Renault is nowhere near delivering a bang, other than the fact that the Fluence is now available at 11.9L ex-s/room

They are floundering like blind men. When I wanted a TD of the Koleos (some 6-8 months back) they could not arrange it, then finally it happened about 2-3 months ago, as a friend knew the country head (gora sahib)

Last week they called me to offer me a "special deal" - they were ready to knock off 2L off the sticker price !! Ok that was a wrong statement, they have officially reduced the price of the Koleos by 2L - the caller then asked me why I was not interested now, as I was earlier, so I told her that I had a Freelander now

So all in all - they are doing about everything wrong from day one. To which she said - Saar that is very expensive, this is "only" 21 now ..

Basically too little too late



Cheers

[volkman10]

Renault turns to India for relief from Europe slump.

Automaker aims to boost market share to 5% from almost zero in growing market

The launch of the Scala minicar last month is part of Renault's goal to boost its market share in Asia's third-largest economy to 5 percent by 2020 from next to nothing. After eight months, Renault had sold 10,259 vehicles in India compared with 673 during the same period in 2011, according to JATO Dynamics. Renault aims to boost its annual sales in India to 100,000 by 2014.

http://www.autonews.com/article/2012...#ixzz2AOQt6two

As far as i remeber, I have read somewhere or the dealer told me that

"Renault is pushing its assembly line to deliver 40 000 Dusters in a month."

Not sure whether this is correct or not. Already Duster has huge waiting list. Maybe this could be one possible reason to push more vehicles. May be duster is one reason for setting their targets high.

[vibbs]

Originally Posted by gemi_kk

GTO. Thanks for correcting. I was in an assumption that, Renault is selling an average of 3000-4000 cars per month. Now i realize that duster was hardly launched 3 months ago. and Duster is the sole reason for the 800 average cars per month too. If not, their average would be somewhere around 300.

How can duster be the reason for 800 average cars before it was even launched? Duster was launched in July and GTO made that post in May.

[Shandy1981]

Hope they dont believe their own hype, cause for now to me this bang is more like the word bang on flag that pops out of a gun.

Long way to go for them, in a way a good place to be and can reap tremendous benefits if the cards (service level, quality of vehicles, transparency, pricing etc.) are played right. So far doesn't seem to be the case, but wish them luck

They should concentrate on having 2-3 cars that are truly their own and not stickering over Nissan or vice-versa, once can hope...