Renault Kwid has turned around the fortunes of Renault-Nissan Alliance in the Indian market.
Renault Kwid has turned around the fortunes of Renault-Nissan Alliance in the Indian market. With the demand-supply ratio being skewed, the Renault-Nissan Chennai plant is to begin ‘around the clock’ production with the third shift being added to the production schedule.
This plant is the alliance’s largest manufacturing facility in the world and feed the export demand of Nissan models like Sunny and Micra along with the local demand of the highly successful Renault Kwid. The plant has the capacity to produce 480,000 units per year at full ramp up.
It began operations in 2010 with an initial investment of INR 45 billion with additional INR 16 billion pumped in for expansion. In the last 6 years, 12 all-new Nissan, Renault and Datsun models have been introduced to its two production lines catering for both domestic and international markets. The facility, which celebrated producing its one millionth unit in January, is currently India’s second-largest car exporter with more than 600,000 units shipped to 106 countries. The company has set up an R&D centre in Chennai which developed the Renault Kwid as per local tastes with localization levels off over 98 percent. The company claims the whole investment has lead to 12,000 direct jobs in Tamil Nadu and over 40,000 indirect jobs through the supplier chain.
Colin MacDonald, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Renault Nissan Automotive India Private Ltd (RNAIPL), says: “Increasing our production capability means we will be able to better meet the demands of our Indian and overseas customers by limiting waiting times on deliveries. On average we have launched two new models each year since the plant opened. This is a testament to the skill and dedicated of our Indian workforce, including our supplier partners, who are not only providing a range of great products for our domestic customers but also showcasing Indian build-quality on the world stage.”