Honda expanding Acura into emerging markets

Intent on expanding its global luxury footprint, Honda's Acura division is set to move into markets like Russia, Ukraine, Brazil and the Middle East over the next few years.

However, Honda says that its plans for Acura aren't as ambitious as Nissan's intentions for its Infiniti brand, reports Automotive News. The industry journal points out that Honda has no target as broad as Infiniti's intention to grow from 170,000 to 500,000 new car sales globally by 2017.

Currently, most Acuras are sold in North America, although the brand has a small presence in China. 

The automaker intends to use the upcoming Acura NSX hybrid supercar as a means of building interest in certain global markets where it doesn't currently sell its vehicles. Complicating matters in some markets is the fact that the car is badged as a Honda NSX nearly everywhere but the United States and Canada. 

Although high volume production of the Ohio-built NSX is never likely, the sports car could serve as a halo vehicle to drive showroom traffic in the burgeoning Russian and Chinese markets. 

Notably, Acura U.S. chief Jeff Conrad says that the brand won't be headed to recession-stricken Western Europe any time soon, however.