Nissan Australia’s shocking sales slump explained

Nissan Australia is looking down the barrel at one of its worst sales years in recent memory, recording a slump of 37.9 per cent in the 11 months of 2022.

The well-established brand’s local sales tally has slumped to 23,951 so far this year, from 38,558 in the same period in 2021.

Once firmly entrenched as a top-10 auto brand in Australia, Nissan is now languishing behind Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz in 12th position and only just ahead of Chinese budget brand GWM.

It’s not a good look for the Japanese car-maker, which is part of the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi alliance, but Nissan Australia managing director Adam Paterson said the sales downturn is primarily due to an inability to source vehicles from the factory, leading to long customer waiting lists.

“What I can tell you is our sales volume is relative of availability, more so than demand. The results of the last 12 months are supply-driven and not-demand driven,” he said, insisting that a “significant” number of customers are still queuing up for cars that are proving difficult to procure.

“We have a significant order bank and I would say that's what's exciting. That's what has excited our dealer partners, that traffic in the showrooms and on websites and phone traffic and email inquiry has been strong and they're building order banks in there.

“I would say our job right now is to help [dealers] with the right information to provide to our customers so that they're informed as to when that [delivery] may be. In many cases they're very willing to wait,” said Paterson.

Nissan Australia’s best-selling vehicle, the Nissan Navara ute, has seen its sales drop significantly, to just 8348 units in the dominant 4x4 ute segment – miles behind league leaders Toyota HiLux (44,217) and Ford Ranger (39,105) and only slightly ahead of the GWM Ute (6760).

But Paterson says that customer deposits for the Thai-built ute are significant and he expects to see higher sales numbers in 2023 as supply improves.

“We have a strong order bank for Navara, including the Warriors in both trims – SL and Pro-4X – but we haven't been able to have the level of supply that customers are asking for at this point,” he reiterated.

Nissan is more bullish about the prospects for its all-new QASHQAI, which launched this week in Australia.

“Although we've got a 60-ish day supply line to get vehicles here from the UK for QASHQAI… we've got a significant volume of cars on the water and enough to satisfy our order bank today.

“Now does that mean our entire order bank is going to be clear by the time they arrive? No… But on an aggregate macro level we have enough vehicles inbound today to cover our outstanding order bank.”

Nissan expects the new X-TRAIL to do a lot of heavy lifting for the brand in 2023 as well, given it’s historically the brand’s second best selling model behind the Navara.

Indeed, the Nissan Australia boss told carsales he expects 2023 will be a “better” year for the brand and although he wouldn’t predict a return to the top 10, he said supply levels will improve considerably.

Paterson said that will reduce delivery wait times for customers – an issue affecting all car brands right now (and arguably the number one bugbear for new-vehicle buyers).

“Top 10? You're asking me how well the other brands are going do and what their supplies are going to be like so I'm not going to guess on that. Our aspirations are going to be to get back to volume levels that we've been at previously.

“I mean, we’d need a crystal ball to make sure we have no more global conflicts or shipping challenges or this or that or COVID outbreaks… I don't want to be sitting here in nine months and you say ‘Well, why didn't you deliver more volume in last year?’ Look, steel could be more difficult to procure or whatever it may be.”

Nissan’s Australian chief said the car-maker has the freshest product portfolio of any auto brand in Australia right now, with new-generation small, mid-size and large SUVs in showrooms – the QASHQAI, X-TRAIL and Pathfinder respectively.

The new Nissan Z is also getting customers into forecourts, said Paterson.

“We are absolutely excited to have the showroom line-up we have right now and so are our dealers. Most have spent many, many years as Nissan dealers and perhaps can't remember a time that the showroom has been fresher.

“We’ve never launched this many cars in such a short amount of time and we share with dealers some of what our future plans are as far as product launches are concerned, which we'll be able to share with you guys down the road.

“Obviously we share slightly more with dealers than we do with the public and they're pretty excited about what the future holds,” he said, hinting at the next-generation Nissan Navara and its potential for a hybrid powertrain.

“We've also got the Patrol Warrior for the back half of next year, so there's things in the pipeline,” he added.

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