After just 3 years of its launch in 2017, Renault has discontinued the Captur in India owing to poor sales. In three years, Renault only sold 6,618 units of the Captur in India.
In what comes across as quite sad but not surprising, Renault has silently discontinued the Captur in India. This marks the end of the road for what was Renault’s flagship product in India. It was launched in 2017 and was pulled off the market in just three years, during which Renault sold only 6,618 units (until March 2020) of the Captur. That’s quite a poor number and averages at just 228 units per month. It is because the Captur could never really set its foot in the market that Renault has now discontinued the SUV in the country.
We have got to admit that the Captur was a handsome looking car but its looks were not enough to keep it alive in our market. A high sticker price, a not so premium cabin and very tough competitors are what made the going difficult for the Renault Captur. Of course it did have its share of strengths as well. The Captur in India was underpinned by the Duster’s M0 platform and it had superb ride quality and an equally great diesel engine. However, with the BS6 norms, Renault discontinued all its diesel engines, and with it, one of few of Captur’s strengths too.
The M0 platform-based Captur was recently updated to M0+ platform along with a facelift for international markets such as Russia. However, doing the same for the India-spec Captur would require additional costs which the company wouldn’t be really wanting to spend considering that its not so popular after all. Moreover, the Captur would have to face renewed competition from the likes of the Hyundai Creta and the Kia Seltos which are way above its league in terms of appeal and popularity.
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The Renault Captur’s sister car, the Nissan Kicks is also based on the M0 platform. Nissan has however decided to keep its SUV alive as a petrol-only model for India and Renault could have done the same. However, with the discontinuation of the Captur, the company can now focus all its energies on products that are more important to the brand in India. Unlike Nissan, Renault has fuller model line-up in India starting from the very successful Kwid to a mega hit that is the Triber and then of course, there’s the Duster.
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The Duster too is now a petrol-only model and although its a slow-seller currently, Renault hopes to keep the Duster nameplate alive in India as it still has some relevance here, until a new Duster arrives sometime in 2022. Going ahead, Renault will also have a new sub-compact SUV called the Kiger which is expected to be really promising. We think the loss of the Captur will be more than compensated by the arrival of the new Renault Kiger.
