Business

Nissan Makes Push to Be India's Top Auto Exporter
By wchung | 08 Jun, 2026

Japan’s number two carmaker Nissan Motors has decided to make India its global export base with an eye toward becoming that nation’s leading auto exporter.

Currently, Hyundai and Maruti Suzuki are India’s top two auto exporters. But Nissan is the nation’s fastest growing exporter, having doubled exports to 100,909 cars during the last fiscal year on strong demand for compacts from Europe and Latin America.

“We have ambitious plans for India,” said Nissan Motor India (NMIPL) Managing Director Takayuki Ishida. “Exports from India have been a huge success so far, and we want to increase it with new models, as trans-continental markets post stronger demand for smaller cars. We plan to increase our production to over 400,000 cars, most of which would be meant for exports.”

The company now produces 300,000 units in the Renault-Nissan plant in Chenna, with about 85% of output intended for exports to markets in Europe, Asia and Africa. It hopes to top Korea’s Hyundai which shipped 237,000 cars from India during the last fiscal year.

Nissan only began exporting cars from India in 2010. It currently ships 85% of its Chennai production overseas. Its wholly-owned Indian subsidiary NMIPL has now started shipping its sedan model Nissan Sunny after the huge success of its India-built Micra hatchback, which is now sold in over 100 countries.

The company has begun exporting completely knocked down kits of its Sunny sedan to Egypt where they would be assembled by the local Nissan subsidiary there.

Low labor costs in India give carmakers based there a big competitive edge, especially with low-priced models that appeal to most of the world’s emerging economies.

Nissan is developing a small car to challenge the Maruti Suzuki Alto and Hyundai Eon. It plans to use its Oragadam plant in Chennai to make Datsun cars for local and export markets and is also mulling a new factory to manufacture the new economy brand which revives the original name under which Nissan began exporting small cars to the US market in the late 1960s. Datsun is expected to roll out by mid-2014.