Marketing Nano as the cheapest car was a mistake: Ratan Tata

November 30, 2013 01:34 am | Updated November 16, 2021 07:56 pm IST - SINGAPORE:

The Tata group may consider launching its small car Nano in a new avatar in another country like Indonesia, where it doesn’t have the ‘stigma’ of being ‘the cheapest car’, and bring it back to India for a fresh start with a new image, according to Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata. Mr. Tata, who stepped down as the Chairman of the salt-to-software conglomerate last December, said Nano could also be marketed as a changed product in Europe to tap interest on the car outside India.

“Maybe it (Nano) gets launched in another country like Indonesia, where it doesn’t have the stigma and the new image comes back to India. Or maybe as a changed product that gets marketed in Europe. There’s a lot of interest in Nano outside India,” Tata said in an interview on CNBC’s Managing Asia.

Stating that Tatas are working on a refreshed Nano, he added: “A re-launched Nano with some of the differences that we’re trying to incorporate, yes I do...We are going to relaunch the car not as the cheapest car but in the image as it is.” Admitting that Tata Motors made a mistake in the marketing and positioning of the Nano, he said: “It became termed as a cheapest car by the public and, I am sorry to say, by ourselves, not by me, but the company when it was marketing it. I think that is unfortunate.”

He further said: “I always felt that Nano should have been marketed towards the owner of a two-wheeler because it was conceived giving the people who rode on two-wheels with the whole family an all-weather safe form of affordable transportation, not the cheapest.”

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