Nissan Motor has embarked on a comprehensive market expansion plan to grow its domestic as well as exports businesses from India by threefold by FY26, according to a top company official.

The Japanese auto major has also decided to scale up its product portfolio for India: growing from a single car to two cars and five cars by FY 2026. The line-up would also include an affordable electric SUV, he said.

‘’Our goal is to boost domestic sales to 1,00,000 units annually and increase exports to 1,00,000 units by FY26, that’s a 3X growth. Since FY2020, we’ve sold over 1,05,000 units of the Magnite in the domestic market and exported about 35,000 units from Chennai,’‘ Saurabh Vatsa, Managing Director, Nissan Motor India told The Hindu.

According to Mr. Vatsa, this expansion is backed by Nissan’s upcoming launches, including two new C-SUVs, an electric SUV and a refreshed version of the compact SUV Magnite. The company has recently launched its fourth generation new X-TRAIL and it is also working on an affordable EV in an SUV form, which could be either an A-SUV or B-SUV.

‘’All our new products will be SUVs. In fact, we have a mini SUV with the Magnite. The affordable EV will either be an A or a B segment vehicle, we are yet to announce that. We will be bringing in two new CSUVs (one five-seater and one seven-seater). And X-TRAIL is a D segment vehicle but we are not getting into any other segment like the MPV or Sedan segment,’‘ he elaborated.

‘’We are going to go from a single car company based on the success of Magnite to five cars by FY26 so you can imagine, in about 30-35 months, we are multiplying domestic volumes by three times. From one car we are going to five cars. And we are doing it in a very tight timeline in India,’‘ he stated.

Responding to a query on why Nissan took a lot of time to go bullish on India, a booming auto market, Mr. Vatsa responded that Nissan has consciously taken some time to put a strategy together for the country.

‘’We have, consciously at Nissan, taken some time and Magnite is a very successful product for us in the extremely competitive environment,’‘ he added.

Nissan would be focused on SUVs, where the volume growth was going to come from. The SUV ‘form factor,’ over the last four or five years, has transitioned from around 10% of the total car market of the country to almost 40% now, he observed.

‘’Magnite,we are going to have a refresh by the end of the financial year. Having a right hand drive and a left hand drive, Magnite will become a global car which is going to be exported to 40 countries, from 17 currently, by the end of FY25,’‘ he added.