International car major Renault has finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel—and that light is increasingly shining on it from India.
“India is at the centre of Renault group’s strategic plans,” said the company’s global CEO Francois Provost, visiting India for the first time since taking over as CEO last summer.
At the heart of Provost’s ambitious plan to turn the Euro-centric car company into a global heavyweight hinges majorly on how its Indian operations get its act together. Already, the new CEO has set his target high—36 new models before the decade is out, a mix of full electric and hybrids.
At the company plant in Chengalpattu in Tamil Nadu, the same plant that it has been jointly running with Nissan since 2008, before completely taking it over last year, Renault global CEO Provost revealed more information on the plan, including how India will be pivotal to the whole scheme of things.
Of the 36 new models, 14 will be for the international markets, with 7 of them to be launched in India by 2030 across two platforms, RGEP and RGMP.
The new launches will also include Renault’s first-ever fully electric car for India, as well as the sub-SUV Bridger.
Renault had entered Indian consciousness by inadvertently kick-starting India’s SUV scaling up when it launched the Duster back in 2012. It is another matter that despite selling lakhs of the model, the SUV revolution in India is more identified with the likes of Ford Ecosport initially and the market leader Hyundai Creta. And Renault committed a faux pas when it withdrew the model from the market without any upgradation or replacement—market share plummeted to less than 1 per cent before it started going up again recently.
Provost said that the immediate aim is to cross 5 per cent market share in India. An upgraded version of Duster, which hit the market this week, should help in that.
The Indian business’s importance is not only about increasing sales—the company plans to double its production capacity at the Tamil Nadu plant, with an eye on exports. This could just be the bigger play, with Provost having set a target of 2 billion euros in export value. “After (spending time here), I feel even more confident of our plans for India,” Provost said.
