The French automaker Renault,
eager to improve its profitability, announced on Thursday it has set a target of
selling 3 million cars by 2013.

A general view of the Renault headquarters in Boulogne-Billancourt, near Paris, January 11, 2011. (Xinhua/Reuters File Photo)

Presenting its new five-year
strategy, the second largest automaker in France planned to debut 48 models in
late 2016 for all its brands, including Renault, Dacia and Renault-Samsung,
eight more than in 2010.

Four electric car models — Fluence
ZE, Kangoo, Twizy and Zoe — on which Renault has spent enormous cash and human
resources in development, will hit the market by 2012. The company also set a
goal of selling 100,000 electric cars by 2013.

Renault’s 2010 sales result reached
2.6 million units, of which between 28 percent and 30 percent were low-price
products. The group’s CEO, Carlos Ghosn, said that the increase outlook of 0.4
million units by 2013 will be mainly achieved in markets beyond Europe.

“There will be many innovations,”
Ghosn said with respect to the new plan, which aims to adjust the company’s
network by concentrating productions of high-end and more expensive cars in
western Europe.

Unlike its domestic rival, PSA
Peugeot, which started cooperation with Chinese counterparts years ago,
Renault’s focus on emerging economies is still in Brazil, Russia and India, with
no entity in China.

According to Ghosn, the new
five-year vision to 2016 was comparatively conservative, because he wanted to
ensure its success. Renault’s last five-year plan was frustrated due to the
impact of the global financial crisis.

Renault realized a revenue of 38.97
billion euros (53.03 billion U.S. dollars) in 2010, up 15.6 percent compared to
the 2009 result. With a net profit standing at 3.42 billion euros (4. 65 billion
dollars), the group managed to return to profit on governmental fiscal stimulus
after a loss of 3.13 billion euros (4. 26 billion dollars) in 2009.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet