In January 2012, Japanese auto major Nissan's Indian subsidiary Nissan Motor India sold 1,855 units of its compact car Micra. The same month French carmaker Renault launched its compact car Pulse in India. In February this year, Micra sales were down to 608 units, while Pulse sold 420 units. Turn to sedans. In August 2012, Nissan's sedan Sunny sold 2,757 units. In September that year Renault launched its sedan, Scala. By February this year Sunny sales had fallen to 1,191 units, while Scala sold 620 units. And guess what? Nissan and Renault are not even competitors. They have been strategic partners since 1999. Micra, Pulse, Sunny and Scala are all products of the Nissan-Renault alliance. Or take German car manufacturer Volkswagen's sedan Vento. It sold 3,474 units in India in October 2011. A month later, carmaker Skoda launched its sedan Rapid. Vento's sales have since fallen to 1,909 by February this year. Once again, Skoda is part of the Volkswagen group - Vento and Rapid are from the same stable. In fact, Micra and Pulse are essentially the same cars, with some cosmetic differences, made in the same factories, but sold under different names. So too are Sunny and Scala, or Vento and Rapid.
Welcome to the strategy of crossbadging , or selling the same car under different brand names - a concept new to India, but used for decades in the United States and Europe to boost sales. "Automobile makers resort to cross-badging to save on engineering, design and product development costs, to achieve economies of scale, to reduce the lead time in bringing a new product to the market, and to widen their product portfolio and get better returns with incremental investment," says Vijay Kakade, Director, Automotive and Transportation Practice, Frost & Sullivan. It costs at least Rs 300 crore to develop a car for India. But cross-badging requires merely tooling changes - an