AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)06/06 Report--

On June 6, Nissan China announced its sales figures for May 2023. Nissan sold 66096 vehicles in China in May 2023, up 10.7 per cent from a year earlier and 7.8 per cent month-on-month, according to data. Among the sub-brands, Dongfeng Nissan (including Nissan, Qichen and Infiniti brands) sold 62832 vehicles, up 12.4% from the same period last year and 9.2% from the previous year. Nissan brand sales were 56913, up 14.1% from the same period last year and 8.4% from the previous month; the light commercial vehicle business sector (Zhengzhou Nissan) sold 3264 vehicles.

According to official data, Nissan's sales in China (including passenger vehicles and light commercial vehicles) in the first four months of 2023 were 47521, 59997, 54443 and 61313 respectively, down 64.4%, 22.6%, 25.3% and 1.5% respectively from a year earlier. May was the first month for Nissan China to achieve year-on-year growth since 2023. Nissan sold 66096 vehicles in China in May, up 10.7 per cent from a year earlier. By the end of May 31, Nissan China, including passenger vehicles and light commercial vehicles, had accumulated sales of 289370 vehicles, but due to sales in the previous April, cumulative sales in the first five months were still down 23.5% from a year earlier.

As for sales performance, Mr. Shohei Yamazaki, senior vice president of Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., chairman of Nissan China Management Committee and president of Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd., said: "as market conditions become more stable, sales performance continues to recover this month."

Dongfeng Nissan is currently the main source of sales of Nissan in China. At present, Dongfeng Nissan passenger cars are mainly composed of three major brands: Nissan, Infiniti and Qichen. Models on sale include Xuanyi, Teana, Qijun, Xiaoke, Bluebird, Tuda, Jinke, Loulan and so on, but the main selling models are only Xuanyi, Teana and Xiaoke, but at present these traditional fuel vehicles have lost their advantage in the Chinese market. Take the retail sales announced by the Federation of passengers in April 2023 as an example, Dongfeng's daily production and sales volume is 51103, of which Xuanyi has the highest sales volume of 26975, accounting for about 52.78% of the total sales, followed by Xiaoke and Teana, with sales of 7669 and 6740 respectively. The rest of the models are sold more than 4000.

Looking back on 2022, Dongfeng Nissan has not had an easy time in the Chinese market. Dongfeng Nissan retail sales fell 20.9 percent year-on-year to 898000 vehicles in 2022, falling below one million vehicles for the first time since 2014, according to the data. For comparison, Dongfeng's daily production and sales volume was 1.133 million in 2020 and 1.135 million in 2021. Judging from the sales performance in the first five months of this year, Nissan's sales in China are still in a year-on-year decline. Auto Industry concern believes that Nissan's sales in China are difficult to boost or related to these two major reasons. first, at present, Nissan is difficult to launch popular models in the field of fuel vehicles, and the main sales are only Xuanyi, Teana and Xiaoke. The market competitiveness of these three models is gradually being diluted, taking Teana as an example, although the car has been replaced in the middle of the year. However, since its launch, the car has fallen out of the top 10 of the list of medium-sized cars many times this year. As a reference, Teana sold 6740 vehicles in April, up 57.11% from March, but far behind Accord (25590) and Camry (18193).

Second, the domestic market is now a strong rise of new energy models, but Nissan in the field of electrification progress is very slow, only Nissan Ariya SUV model. In September last year, Dongfeng Nissan launched its first pure electric SUV model, AiRuiya, which is based on Nissan's new pure electric vehicle platform, positioning compact SUV, and launched a total of four models, with a price range of 27.28-342800 yuan at that time. There are two-wheel drive version and four-wheel drive version, in which the two-wheel drive version carries a single motor with maximum power of 178kW and a peak torque of 300Nm. The four-wheel drive version is equipped with dual motors with maximum power of 160kW and peak torque of 600Nm. In terms of battery, the new car is equipped with ternary lithium ion battery pack and CLTC pure electric mileage of 623km. According to the data, Aliya sold 67, 64, 329 and 495 vehicles respectively from January to April in 2023, compared with 955 in the previous April, which means that Dongfeng Nissan is currently slow to electrify.

In other words, if Nissan wants to increase its sales and market share in China, it urgently needs to spend more resources and energy to accelerate the launch of more cost-effective and more attractive electric models. At present, Japanese car companies, including Toyota, Honda and Nissan, have announced to speed up the transformation of new energy vehicles, of which Nissan plans to launch 19 pure electric vehicles and 35 hybrid models by 2030.

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