Renault Group chief Carlos Ghosn unveiled here on Wednesday what he called a ‘car for conquest’ to compete in the compact segment that represents one-fourth of India’s market with estimated annual sales of about three million units.

The French automaker announced plans to start selling the 800-cc Kwid during the September-November festival season.

At a starting price of ₹3 lakh — about €4,200 or $4,500 — the Kwid is positioned on the value-for-the-buck platform and will take on Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai, the top players in this segment. Maruti’s Alto 800 starts at ₹2.83 lakh, the Hyundai Eon at ₹3.09 lakh (e-showroom Delhi).

Maruti Suzuki sells about 300,000 cars and Hyundai about 90,000 in the entry level range.

The Kwid offers a lot in terms of looks and performance, said Ghosn. Terming it an “important pillar for advancement of Renault in India”.

Built on the Renault-Nissan alliance’s new CMF-A platform, the Kwid holds the key to the company meeting the target of taking a 5 per cent share of the domestic car market, he said.

The Kwid is the product of French, Indian and Japanese talent and balances cost and features, including an SUV-like look, best in class leg-room for a compact car, and the first-of-its-kind multimedia-navigation system with a seven-inch display. Air bags are optional, he said.

According to Ghosn, the Kwid has a unique first — developed by a global manufacturer with 98 per cent localisation from Day One.

Renault now has a 1.5 per cent market share in India, mostly from the SUV Duster, its single successful offering among half a dozen models that have seen ‘moderate sales’. But all the launches have taught the company a lot in its five-year stint in India.

A couple of months back, it launched the Lodgy, a multipurpose vehicle, whose sales have just started, he said.

The CMF-A platform will serve as a pad for launching an entirely new range of vehicles by both the alliance partners Renault and Nissan, which have built a factory with a capacity of 400,000 cars a year at Oragadam near Chennai.

Primarily for the India market, the Kwid may in due course be exported to South-East Asian and neighbouring countries, Ghosn said.

Nissan will launch a Datsun brand on the same platform next year. While the platform will be shared, there will be no cross-badging of any model, he said. Both the new platform and the engine provide room for a whole line of evolution, he said.

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