Nissan beats Maruti to become India's second biggest car exporter

Nissan Motor India has pipped Maruti Suzuki by becoming the second-largest car exporter in India for the financial year 2013-14. Nissan’s South Korean rival Hyundai has retained its position as the top car exporter in the fiscal. Hyundai is also the second-largest domestic carmaker.

Nissan has seen a significant growth of 17 per cent in the previous years with the export of 1.18 lakh car units whereas Maruti has seen a decline in its export operations with about 16 per cent with only 99,832 units of vehicles exported from the country. Hyundai Motor India is sitting safely at top, having exported 2.04 lakh units for the same period. Other major car exporters from India for the fiscal were Ford which sold 48,088 units due to a strong overseas demand for the Figo and EcoSport, Volkswagen which managed to sell 32,588 units and Toyota Kirloskar which sold 27,276 units.

A major reason for decline in Maruti Suzuki's exports has been the change in the homologation norms in Algeria and several African countries signing a preferential import duty agreement with European companies. Cars from European manufacturers enter these markets with a 10-20-per cent lower duty than that imposed on Indian carmakers.

Nissan is anticipating a rise in exports in the next two years with the addition of Datsun. The company plans to export parts of Datsun to other emerging markets where the brand will make a debut soon. The carmaker also exports a number of engine and body parts to over 14 countries, including the UK, Brazil, Mexico and the US. The company exported over three lakh passenger vehicles in its three years of operations and has plans to make it to the top of the exports by 2016.