Nissan has the potential to double its market share in the Middle East but needs to offer more smaller and cheaper cars, Renault-Nissan president and CEO Carlos Ghosn has said.
“I think we are far, far from our potential,” Ghosn told AFP while in Emirati capital Abu Dhabi, to launch a new version of Nissan’s Patrol SUV, a popular model in the region. “I’m looking for doubling the market share in the Middle East.”
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“One of the reasons .. we’re not maximising market share is we don’t have enough small cars, and cheaper cars,” he said.
Small, inexpensive cars based on the company’s V-platform, to be launched in Geneva next month, would be key to addressing this shortage, he said.
Patrol programme manager Carla Bailo told the news agency Nissan expected its updated SUV to sell around 20,000 units a year in the Middle East, up from the current model’s 5,000-8,000.
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Nissan is the second-largest car manufacturer in terms of market share in the region after Toyota, Ghosn said, declining to give specific figures.
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By GlobalDataHe said Toyota’s brake and accelerator problems, which have caused the company to recall millions of vehicles, could offer Nissan a short-term tactical advantage, but probably nothing more.
“When a car company is in trouble, yes, you can have some tactical advantages in the short-term,” he said.
“But frankly, don’t expect anything more than that … I think you progress in your market share because of your product, your merit, not because somebody else is weak.”
Ghosn also said he “would like Renault-Nissan to be the pioneer and the leader” in electric vehicles. “I want electric car (to) mean Renault or Nissan, period,” he said.
“There are two things which are absolutely important to understand for the electric car,” he said. “The first is the CO2 problem is here to stay,” and the second was that oil prices were likely to increase.
“I don’t think you need to be a huge visionary … to say zero-emission cars are going to be a part of this industry,” he said, adding that the only question was how much of the market would be made up of electric cars.
“You’re gonna see that all car manufacturers will end up doing an electric car,” he said.
Nissan is to launch its first electric vehicle, the Leaf, by the end of 2010, Ghosn said.
He said that a Nissan electric light commercial vehicle, luxury sedan and a small “city car” were also in the pipeline, along with four Renault electric vehicles.
Earlier this month, Nissan Motor upgraded its earnings outlook, saying it was on course to end the current financial year in the black thanks to solid demand in China and other emerging markets, AFP noted.
It said it now expects a net profit of JPY35bn ($392m) for the current fiscal year to March, against an earlier projection of a JPY40bn loss.
Separately, Ghosn told Reuters Nissan expected to be debt-free by the end of 2010.
A Nissan executive had earlier told the news agency the automaker expected its overall industry volume for the year to be good, helped mainly by sales in China.
