Tata Nano inspired the Kwid, says Carlos Ghosn

Renault's Kwid has been one of the biggest success stories the Indian market has seen in recent times. And thanks to its sales figures, it is frequently among the top-ten bestsellers in the country. This has helped Renault become the number one European carmaker in India by carving out a huge chunk of sales in the highly price-conscious entry-level segment of the car market, selling an average of 8,812 units per month over the 2016 calendar year.

Product strengths aside, the high level of localisation and frugally engineered CMF-A platform were the key pillars on which the Kwid’s success was built. Interestingly, it was the frugal engineering example set by Tata Motors’ Nano that proved to be an inspiration in developing this platform.

About the Kwid, Carlos Ghosn, chairman and CEO, Renault-Nissan said, “We acted on the Nano. I may be the only one to say, Ratan Tata was visionary in launching the Nano and we followed and I am glad we did because the success of Renault today in India is mainly because of the success of the Kwid.” However, this is a bit ironic because the Nano failed to reach similar levels of success.

The Datsun Redigo was the second product to be launched on the CMF-A platform, but it did not meet the success levels of the Kwid. However, that isn’t stopping Renault from using it for more vehicles. “We are not as successful with Datsun as we would like it to be. But when you are in a long- term strategy, we don't expect success to come in the first try. You have to try, analyse what is good, modify and do it again until you are successful, Ghosn said.

He also confirmed that the platform will be used by Nissan to launch its own product, and other group brands could bring out more products either on the same platform or on slightly modified versions of it.

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