Nissan launches X-Trail sports vehicle
By Our Corporate Bureau | 19 Aug 2004
Mumbai:
Nissan Motor Co has launched its sports utility vehicle
(SUV) X-Trail, in India in two variants. The base variant,
Comfort, comes for Rs20 lakh while the premium variant
Elegance is priced at Rs22.5 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).
According
to Yasuaki Hashimoto, vice-president, general overseas
market who looks after marketing and sales for Asia
and Oceania at Nissan Motors, the launch of the X-Trail
is to test the Indian market and the performance of
the vehicle here would decide the Nissan's future strategy
in India.
According
to him, the company is studying various options for
its strategy in India but at present it is waiting to
see how the X-Trail performs and the company is incurring
virtually no marketing or promotion costs as it simply
wants to understand the Indian market.
He
did not reveal the number of X-Trails the company wanted
to sell in 2004.
The company will go through the import route for the
X-Trail wherein the SUV would be brought in as completely
built units from Nissan's plant in Japan and would attract
a duty of 104 per cent.
The X-trail sold 140,000 units worldwide last year and
is one of the most popular SUVs in the global markets.
The X-Trail comes with a 2.2-litre common rail diesel
engine and six-speed manual transmission delivering
136 horse power. The vehicle would be sold through four
dealers in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, sources
said.
X-Trail
was launched in Japan in November 2000 and unveiled
in India during the Auto Expo in Delhi in January 2004.
The vehicle is currently sold in over 180 countries.
Nissan
officials said the X-Trail had a high-performance four-wheel
drive system, which provides great maneuverability as
well as low fuel consumption. It has been developed
around the product concept of a versatile and authentic
SUV, designed to offer the optimum balance between off-road
capacity and on-road comfort.
This
is Nissan's second foray in the country after its former
light truck venture with Hyderabad-based Allwyn in the
'90s.
Analysts say, the performance of the UV market is India is likely to attract more companies in this segment. Domestic UV sales went up by 27.6 per cent to 144,981 units during 2003-04, the increased sales being mainly due to increased sales after the launch of the Toyota Qualis and Mahindra's Scorpio.