Nissan Motor will be able to meet its goal of taking 10% of the US market in two years without any major new investments and by making use of capacity available at factories in Japan and South Korea, a top executive has said.
With sales in the United States growing at nearly twice the pace of the overall market last year, the automaker has been expanding capacity at its North American plants but needs more to meet demand, Reuters reported.
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“The key word is flexibility,” Jose Munoz, executive vice president at Nissan and chairman of its North American arm, told reporters at Nissan’s headquarters in Yokohama.
“I can’t (give) you concrete numbers now but we have already started to work on how we can capitalise on the available capacity in Japan for North America.”
Earlier this month, Nissan announced plans to use alliance partner Renault SA’s joint venture plant in South Korea to export more Rogue (X-Trail) crossovers to the United States.
With recent and upcoming model launches such as the Murano SUV, Maxima sedan and Titan pickup truck, Munoz said Nissan has “never been as confident as we are today” over its prospects in the US, its biggest market.
The Tennessee-based Spaniard also said there was no reason for Nissan to lag rival Honda Motor there given its broader product range that includes a full-sized pickup truck and a bigger manufacturing footprint in North America.
Munoz noted that Nissan is closing the gap with Honda also in key product segments where the latter has traditionally dominated with Toyota, thanks to brisk sales of the Altima and Sentra sedans.
“I’m confident we will overtake them,” he said, declining to estimate a time frame.
Nissan took 8.4% of the U.S. market in 2014, inching closer to its 10% goal for the business year to March 2017.
But brisk sales have been driven partly by generous discounts and low-profit deliveries to fleet customers – both of which Munoz said Nissan was successfully beginning to rein in.
