Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has officially announced the resurrection of the company’s storied Datsun nameplate. The company will use the brand to strengthen its foothold in emerging markets from Indonesia to India and Russia, offering buyers inexpensive, fuel-efficient vehicles with loads of content ride out of the box. Last year, Nissan sold 60,000 units in the quickly growing Indonesian market, and the company aims to see that number swell to 250,000 units by 2014. That may seem ambitious, but total industry volume is set to balloon to nearly double its current size 890,000 units per year by 2017 according to analysts.
Datsun now marks the third brand in the Nissan stable alongside Infiniti. The automaker retired the Datsun nameplate in 1981 after reestablishing itself in the States as Nissan. With a new focus on low cost, small-displacement hardware geared toward emerging markets, we sadly don’t expect to see the Datsun name reemerging on our shores any time soon.
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