14 February 2017

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NISSAN Australia sold just under five times the number of SUVs than passenger cars last year, with high riding wagons making up 41,119 units compared with 8682 sedans, hatches and sportscars, but despite the lopsided result, the Japanese car-maker says the numbers are not a concern.

Speaking to GoAuto at the local launch of the Nismo brand and the tuned GT-R, Nissan Australia managing director and CEO Richard Emery said the result was due to a weaker passenger car range compared with its SUV portfolio.

"It's not a worry, that's the way it is, and that's because of the products being offered," he said.

"On the other hand, that means we're probably missing opportunity in passenger cars where we used to be really strong, and that's just about product offering and timing."

For the first month in 2017, only 793 units separated the passenger car and SUV segments in Australia's new car sales charts and, if the proliferatio n of crossovers continues, SUVs are expected to overtake passenger vehicles for the first time this year.

However, Mr Emery said Nissan does not expect SUVs will surpass passenger cars sales for at least another four years, and even if it does, the two will still remain close in terms of volume.

"We aren't predicting it will crossover yet, we think it's still 2021-2022 before it crosses over, and of course, to some extent it's also product driven," he said.

"If there is a fantastic passenger car product offering that changes the segment, it could move back again. I don't think it's going to pass passenger cars and go screaming ahead."

Mr Emery said the categorisation of 'SUV' distorts the sales data as it gives the perception that customers are actively seeking to buy a crossover, when in actual fact, they might just want a hatchback.

"If you look at some of those products that we call an SUV, they're not really," he said. � �People don't buy them and say 'I'm going off to buy an SUV', they go out to buy a small hatchback and they finish up in a Juke or whatever else.

"It's interesting to look at, we all think about SUVs and market segments and growth, but customers just want to buy a car."

Last year, Nissan's passenger car sales dropped by 27 per cent compared with 2015, with all models (except the GT-R flagship) – the mid-size Altima, Leaf EV, Pulsar small car, Micra micro car and 370Z sportscar – experiencing double-digit slides.

In contrast, its SUV sales rose by 3.0 per cent last year, with the Qashqai crossover up by 16.1 per cent to 12,259 – more than the entire passenger car line-up – and the X-Trail surging by 5.2 per cent to 18,903 making it the fourth best seller in the mid-size SUV segment behind the Mazda CX-5, Hyundai Tucson and Toyota RAV4.

The brand's light-commercial offerings – the Navara 4x2 and 4x4 pick-ups and the Patrol cab chassi s – also sold strongly last year, contributing 17,025 (+19.4 per cent) to the overall 2016 Nissan total of 66,826, up 1.2 per cent over the 2015 tally.

Mr Emery said last year's sales result was steady, but Nissan's growth was hampered by a lack of supply on key SUV models, as well as new-generation passenger car products that will not come on stream until mid-2019.

"It was kind of a stable year I'd say, it was ok," he said. "I mean I'm a car guy, I want to sell more cars, so it goes without saying that we would have preferred to sell more cars.

"But we were happy with our year, we felt there was some missed opportunity in Navara – we probably could have done a bit better in Navara. We were really maxed out on X-Trail and Qashqai in terms of supply, so those cars were performing really well.

"So our SUV line-up continues to do really well, passenger car we're challenged on in terms of product offering and we need to fix that in the nex t year and a half.

"But in general, yeah, there's certainly more opportunity in Nissan from a pure volume perspective, some of its product driven, some of it is supply driven, some of it's, you know, we need to do a better job. So all-in-all, it was an OK year."

Mr Emery confirmed that that last remaining stock of the Micra and Pulsar hatch are gone, with the few remaining around the country identified as dealer demos and loan cars. The few remaining vehicles are expected to be gone by the end of March.

Since the product cull, Nissan Australia has been in rebuilding mode, preparing itself for expected growth in the medium-term, according to Mr Emery.

"We've certainly stabilised the business environment for Nissan in Australia, so now we have a business structure in Australia, a business style, a network, a relationship with our dealers, that we're ready for some growth," he said.

"To kick that growth off, we clearly need the next-gener ation of product lines, and you've heard Carlos (Ghosn, Renault-Nissan Alliance chairman and CEO) go and talk about Nissan's future in autonomous driving technologies, and those cars start rolling out kind of at the end of the decade.

"So look, I think we're going to be pretty stable over the next couple of years to be honest, but once we get to (20)19 and (20)20, I think that the opportunity for Nissan Australia starts to really ramp up."