Renault lines up new models, takes rural market road to cement position in India

French automaker Renault aims to drive in new models and focus on sales initiatives, especially in rural areas, as it looks to strengthen its position in India, which continues to remain one of the top ten markets for it globally. Elaborating on the company's mid-to-long term strategic plan to strengthen rural markets for growth, Mamillapalle said last year the company initiated an activity which targeted 330 rural towns across the country.

This is a new avenue that we are aggressively pursuing with an innovative and comprehensive strategy. We have also initiated a special project - VISTAAR to amplify and grow our presence in rural India and our dealership teams have recruited specialised sales consultants to reach out to rural markets," he added.

The share of rural markets in Renault India's total sales grew to 25 per cent in April-June quarter from 19 per cent in January-March period.

This has been achieved through strong product acceptance and focused efforts invested across the rural markets, Mamillapalle said. Commenting on initiatives taken by the company to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, he said that besides launching several initiatives for contact-less sales and service, the company also supported its dealers in many ways. We announced incentives and relaxation on targets to ease the effects of the lock-down, and set up a task force to facilitate financial transactions with the dealership networks. We also supported our dealer partners in terms of inventory holding costs," Mamillapalle.

Question:

What kind of channel of distribution Renault has created to reach out to rural markets and how it will help them to strengthen their position in India?