Nissan soothes nervous dealers

Nervous Nissan dealers concerned about declining sales won’t prompt Nissan Australia to change course and start chasing a high-volume strategy once more.

Nissan Australia boss Richard Emery has reserved the right to prime sales of the Pulsar in the hotly contest small-car category with fleet and rental sales if necessary, but he has vowed the company will not return to the days of mass discounts and ‘cyber cars’ that were an integral part of the Japanese company’s failed campaign to reach 100,000 sales per year.

According to official VFACTS figures, Nissan registrations to July this year are down 1.9 per cent from 38,606 to 37,887 and the brand sits seventh overall on the sales ladder. Overall, the market is up 3.2 per cent in 2015.

“We are a car company, we would always like to sell more cars,” Emery told motoring.com.au. “But we are very comfortable with the way we are selling those cars. In terms of the whole business and its KPIs (key performance indicators) we are right where we want to be.

“As I have said to some dealers in the last couple of weeks who do get panicked about VFACTS numbers, I could sell 500 or 1000 cars more per month extra if I wanted to. But it wouldn’t benefit our business, our dealers’ businesses or our consumers.

“That’s because we would be doing some rental business and some business we now choose not to do.”

Nissan’s registration decline has settled from the dramatic falls of 2014 that came when Emery took over as boss and readjusted the business away from its high-volume aspirations, ending a reliance on discounts to drive sales and paring model ranges of under-performing models.

Nissan’s 2014 decline has mostly come about courtesy of the Pulsar small car, which has never hit its launch volume aspirations and sits more than 1000 sales behind its 2014 YTD result at 4702 registrations.

By comparison the Toyota Corolla leads Australia’s biggest individual vehicle segment in 2015 with 25,323 registrations. The Mazda3 is in hot pursuit with 23,252.

“Twelve months ago we had a confused model line-up and too much stock,” Emery said. “Now we have a simplified range and our stock under control. Those two fundamentals we have solved.
“We now have a realistic view of what the car is capable of in terms of volume.

“The Pulsar sedan is OK in terms of what we are getting out of it versus plan, but that Pulsar hatch business is hugely competitive and driven at the high-end in terms of volume by rentals and fleet business which we have chosen not to be part of.”

Emery said the company had successfully promoted sales of the higher Pulsar ST-L and SSS grades as part of the Series 2 upgrade in April, leaving the lower-spec ST available to push up volume if the company chose to do so.

But he admits the Pulsar, which has been superseded by a new model in Europe, is the weak link in Nissan's model range.

“It (Pulsar) is the one model in our line-up compared to our key competitors that you could say we are still a bit behind the eight ball,” Emery said. “But the car is what it is.

“We will continue to have that discussion and Japan about what we want to do with Pulsar. Do we want to kick it along with volume by doing some business in the rental and fleet markets? At the moment we are choosing not to do that.”

Emery also defended the performance of Nissan’s luxury brand Infiniti, which has been a slow-burn since its 2012 launch.

But with four models due for launch in 2016 and the dealer network to grow from three on the east coast to at least seven outlets, he said he was “comfortable” with its progress.

The four cars to be launched in 2016 are a Q70 update in quarter one, the Q30 small car in Q2, a QX30 crossover spin-off in Q3 and the Q60 sports car in Q4.

New dealerships are expected to be confirmed for Perth and Adelaide before the end of the year, along with second dealerships in Melbourne and Sydney.

“I think you have to cut it a break because I think it is heading in the right direction,” he said. “I am comfortable where we are at with Infiniti.”