AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)05/28 Report--

At a press conference held by Nissan on May 28, CEO Uchida announced the results of the 2019 fiscal year (March 2019-March 2020) and announced a new medium-term plan for the year ending 2023.

Nissan's sales in fiscal 2019 were 9.8789 trillion yen (655.5 billion yuan), down 14.6 percent from 2018, and operating profit was a loss of 40.5 billion yen (- 2.7 billion yuan), compared with 318.2 billion yen in the same period last year, according to financial data released. Net profit was 671.2 billion yen (- 44.5 billion yuan), compared with 319.1 billion yen in the same period last year. It was Nissan's first loss in 11 years and its biggest loss in 20 years.

In fiscal 2019, Nissan sold 4.93 million vehicles worldwide, down 10.6% from the same period last year, and for the first time in seven years Nissan sold less than 5 million vehicles. Of this total, sales in Japan fell 10.3 per cent to 534000, North America 14.6 per cent to 1.62 million, Europe 19.1 per cent to 521000 and China 1.1 per cent to 1.547 million.

For the forecast for fiscal year 2020, Nissan said it would fall 15% to 20% from fiscal year 2019 due to the expanded impact of the COVID-19 epidemic. Nissan did not release a performance forecast for fiscal year 2020 because of the uncertainty caused by the epidemic.

Judging from Nissan's performance data, due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the global car market, coupled with the internal turmoil in the company after Ghosn's arrest, Nissan's performance fell sharply against the backdrop of the market downturn and declining demand for new cars, hitting the lowest profit level in nearly 11 years. As a result, the new four-year plan undertakes Nissan's goal of turning losses into profits, and Nissan will reverse the losses by cutting marketing, research and development and other costs. It is understood that Nissan plans to reduce the production of models from the current 69 to 55, while cutting annual production capacity by 20 to 5.4 million vehicles.

According to the plan, Nissan will focus on the development of the three major markets: China, the United States and Japan. In these three major markets, the Chinese market is the largest and the most important market. The Chinese market basically stagnated during the epidemic, but recovered rapidly after the epidemic, and only China can provide more stable car sales in the global market. At the same time, the US market is the second largest market, and Nissan needs to revive its business in the US market, and Nissan has been trying to turn the US region into a profit engine. However, due to the serious epidemic in the United States, its performance in the US market continues to deteriorate. It will promote equipment phase-out, curb sales management fees, and further reduce costs and speed up the improvement of profitability.

In addition, Nissan will reduce costs by closing factories and streamlining market operations. In addition to closing its Indonesian plant, Nissan also plans to close its Barcelona plant in Spain. At the same time, cut business operations in South America, ASEAN and European markets, and withdraw the Dartsong brand from South Korea and Russia, reducing business in some ASEAN markets.

Since Ghosn's arrest, Nissan has been in a turbulent situation, and the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 has brought irreparable losses to Nissan. The sudden drop in demand for new cars, dealer closures, factory shutdowns and supply chain disruptions have brought uncertainty to Nissan's development. In this context, the uncertainty of the spread of the epidemic may affect the implementation of Nissan's new plan, but if the epidemic continues to spread, Nissan's new plan may be shelved. As for whether the new plan can help Nissan out of trouble, there are indeed a lot of variables at present. However, Nissan CEO Uchida has announced that if the decline of Nissan can not be reversed, it is willing to accept the fate of being fired.

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