The very successful Renault Kwid has now crossed 150,000 units in sales. And there has been a massive contribution from the more recent variant introductions from Renault India. The company has kept up the pace, by regularly introducing something new to the Kwid range. And now NDTV has learnt that the Kwid 1.0 introduced at the end of August 2016 is accounting for 60 per cent of all Kwid sales already. That's a staggering figure considering the Kwid sells as many as 9000 units a month.
Renault Kwid 1.0
And here's the other kicker - the Kwid's AMT version (which is only available with the 1.0 engine anyway) is now accounting for half those sales. That means 30 per cent of all Kwid sales are now AMT. This shows the massive pull towards automatics in India - after all even Maruti Suzuki has had tremendous success with its AGS or auto gear shift AMT range.
Renault Kwid AMT Rotary
Both those numbers are expected to go up further - in absolute terms - and also in terms of the per cent of sales they account for within total Kwid sales. That is because in March we have seen the introduction of the new Kwid Climber. And also because March is likely to be the first full month that will not see much impact from demonetisation. After all, the Kwid AMT had been launched just days after the Prime Minister had announced his demonetization initiative. Even though the Kwid has not seen a major drop in sales, the company believes that sales will see a smart uptick in March and ahead. The Climber variant is also offered exclusively on the 1.0-engined Kwid - and does have the AMT option as a result. The Climber has received a positive feedback already, though given its launch was just a few days ago, its too soon to get any actual numbers, say Renault.
Renault Kwid Climber
Renault has already told us that it will be bringing more options on the Kwid family around the second half of the year. And we told you exclusively that it will also be launching a new petrol engine and CVT gearbox variant of the Duster in May this year. Renault will keep the excitement going to also bring us the Kaptur SUV just before Diwali. All of this is in a bid to break into the Top 5 carmakers in India. Currently Renault is at number 6 overall. It also wants to capture 5 per cent market share - a deadline it seems on track to achieve well ahead of its target. The Kwid will no doubt continue to drive most of the volumes within that. It will be interesting to see Renault also bringing us the next product on the CMFA platform - on which the Kwid and Datsun redi-GO are built. While Datsun is readying its Go-Cross subcompact SUV, Renault is yet to reveal what its next CMFA product will be - in India or other markets. For now it has its hands full taking the Kwid to neighbouring markets like Sri Lanka and Nepal. And also productionising it in other geographies, like Brazil.
