Six years earlier, Nissan revived the Datsun brand name to use it as a designed-for-emerging-markets brand for the Indian, Russian, Indonesian, and the South African markets. As per a recent report by ACI, the Japanese carmaker is looking forward to discontinuing the underperforming brands by 2022.
When the name Datsun was resurrected, that time the company was planning to use it for the entry-level markets with Nissan in the middle and the brand’s luxury division – the Infiniti being at the top.
Datsun marked its debut in the Indian market with the GO hatchback and it was launched by Carlos Ghosn himself. The debut model was unveiled at a world premiere event in New Delhi. After the GO hatchback, the brand also launched the Redi-GO and the 7-seater GO+ in the Indian market.
Things are not going positive for the brand ever since the models have been introduced in the Indian market as the products have failed to produce any significant numbers in sales quotient. In the product line, the GO did not encounter a positive start as it got caught between the separation of Nissan and Hover Automotive India (HAI).
A few months later, the GO hatchback got caught in another peril as it was unable to perform in the Global NCAP test, which was neither good for the model nor for the brand. Nissan was hopeful when it brought Datsun’s third model, the Redi-GO, which again proved to be a big disappointment as its rival Renault Kwid outperformed it, selling almost three times.
Talking about the brand, Nissan is presently struggling to stabilise itself in the market due to global sales stagnation in the US and Europe. This year in July, Nissan organised a major restructuring programme in which it announced the plans to reduce the production capacity and cut down 12,500 jobs around the world in 14 markets including India, in order to resolve things a bit.
As per the latest details available, Nissan will discontinue the Datsun brand in a phased manner after the currently-selling products reach the end of their lifecycle, and after that, they will be discontinued which is expected to happen by end 2022 or early 2023.
