Renault launched its Experience Days campaign in an attempt to widen its reach in smaller towns and rural areas to boost its reach and sales in the country. This campaign includes Showroom on Wheels and Workshop on Wheels services, which are essentially mobile showrooms and service centres.
These two initiatives will serve as an extension of Renault’s current touchpoints, which currently stands at more than 450 dealerships and 500 service centres. Workshop on Wheels will add over 230 service centres to this portfolio.
Its current line-up – Kwid, Triber and Kiger – is designed for the Indian market as they have good ground clearance and cost under Rs 10 lakh. With this, Renault will benefit with additional sales from small towns and rural areas. In 2023, Renault saw a year-on-year sales decline of around 35 percent with less than 30,000 units sold, whereas its competitors like Tata Motors, Hyundai and Maruti Suzuki have seen a year-on-year growth of around 10 percent.
The Showroom on Wheels will display Renault’s portfolio and have a separate air-conditioned unit that will display a car as well as accessories. Renault says that customers will be able to test drive, book and even finance the vehicles from these mobile showrooms. A similar initiative was undertaken by Maruti Suzuki with the mobile Nexa terminal in 2019, where it deployed these showrooms to areas where Nexa dealerships were not present.
The Workshop on Wheels will allow customers to get basic service and maintenance for their Renault cars at the comfort of their home. This service will use a mobile workshop equipped with basic machinery required by the service personnel. This service-at-home facility is already being provided by brands like Maruti Suzuki, MG Motor, Tata Motors and Hyundai.
Earlier this year, Renault and its alliance partner Nissan announced an investment of Rs 5,300 crore in the Indian market to introduce six new locally produced models between the two brands. Four of these would be based on the CMF-B platform, and spawn the upcoming Duster and its seven-seat iteration as well as their Nissan counterparts. The remaining two will be based on the CMF-A platform and would form the basis of the Kwid EV, which is likely to launch by 2025.
Hormazd Sorabjee
Anurag Chaturvedi
