Nissan moves to revive brand, expand market

Nissan Philippines Inc. expects a strong performance in 2015, with sales seen growing by a hefty 40 percent on the back of new model launches, additional dealerships and more aggressive marketing campaigns to revive and rejuvenate the Nissan brand.

A 40-percent growth will translate to sales of more than 10,000 units this year from 7,473 units of Nissan vehicles sold in 2014.

Nissan cornered a market share of only 3.18 percent last year, data from the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. showed.

Antonio Zara, president and managing director of Nissan Philippines, said the company intended to expand its business   in line with the estimated growth of the Philippine automotive industry. For this year, the industry is expected to register sales of about 300,000 units.

The expansion will be anchored on three pillars, he said. “One is a stronger product lineup and the (launching of the new) X-Trail (last year) was a hint of what we have to offer. The second involves the strengthening of our dealership network. The third is reenergizing the Nissan brand to remind Filipinos of the strengths of Nissan. We’ll be doing a lot of marketing activities geared toward rejuvenating the brand in the Philippines.”

According to Zara, the best-selling nameplates would be the Urvan, Almera and Navara, which cumulatively accounted for 70 to 80 percent of the company’s total sales last year.

The Urvan and Almera are being assembled in two separate assembly facilities in Sta. Rosa, Laguna, which are the existing plants of the company’s partners, Nissan Motor Philippines Inc. (NMPI) and Universal Motors Corp., (UMC).

Nissan Philippines recently invested about P866 million in NMPI’s assembly plant in Laguna to further increase the local content of the Almera.