There’s a new kid on the block getting ready to grab market share from the other players. Well, not exactly new and not really a kid, since Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. has a history of over 40 years in the Philippines, with the first Datsun car rolling out of Universal Motors Corp.’s (UMC) assembly plant in 1974. After several years, Nissan motor vehicles were selling so well that the brand rose to No. 3 in the Philippine automotive market.
But somewhere along the way, Nissan lost its direction and was overtaken by rivals. Consumers were confused or turned off by Nissan’s lack of a clear brand direction since Nissan models were produced or imported and marketed by two competing companies: UMC and Nissan Motor Philippines Inc. (NMPI).
Now, Nissan is beginning a new chapter in the Philippines. With the unifying slogan “One company, one direction, one Nissan,” Nissan Motor Co. of Japan has restructured its business presence in the Philippines to form Nissan Philippines Inc. (NPI) in December 2013 with NMPI and UMC as its partners in the assembly of Nissan vehicles for the Philippine market. At the launching program of NPI last Friday, Nissan Motor Co. vice chair Toshiyuki Shiga said that NPI’s major role is to strengthen Nissan’s branding, marketing and sales strategy and dealer operations. NPI intends to reinforce brand and sales power by broadening the product lineup and improving sales and service delivery nationwide.
TARGET. Speaking in Tagalog, NPI president and managing director Kenji Naito revealed that NPI is targeting 4-percent market share by the end of the fiscal year 2014, the new firm’s first year of operation. Eventually, NPI aims to achieve 10-percent market share in the Philippines while its mother company Nissan Motor pursues its business objective to sell 500,000 units and capture more than 15-percent market share in the Asean (Association of South East Asian Nations) region, up from 236,000 unit sales in 2012.
Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. plans continuous market expansion across the Asean region for future growth, Naito said. At the open forum after the unveiling of two new Nissan products, the Altima and the Sylphy, Nissan Motor EVP Takao Katagari expressed the belief that the Asean market will grow more than any other region and that short-term glitches, such as the current political turmoil in Thailand, will not change Nissan’s long-term goals in the Asean market. Katagari added that the Philippines has immense potential to become the next engine of growth in Southeast Asia.
NEW TECHNOLOGY. NPI general manager for sales Lee Junia said that the company will be better focused and will bring in a lot of new technology and innovations that excite. For example, the Sylphy’s engines (1.6 and 1.8 liter) feature Twin C-VTC (Twin Continuously Variable-valve Timing Control) and a Dual Injector System while the Altima has Nissan’s Electronic Concentrated Control System (ECCS) and, like the Sylphy, the next-generation Nissan Ztronic@CVT (Continuously Variable Transmission).
Naito titillated motor sport enthusiasts among the media when he hinted that NPI may bring over NISMO to upgrade the Nissan Almera subcompact sedan, which is assembled here. NISMO (Nissan Motor Sport) modifies Nissan sport cars like the GT-R and 350Z for racing but NISMO packaging and parts are also available for road cars like the Nissan Juke subcompact SUV and the Nissan Frontier pickup truck in the United States. Pressed for a NISMO intro timetable at the open forum, Katagari gave NPI’s standard answer: that they cannot talk on future plans as they have to study first what is best for the Philippine market.
MARKET TREND. Or should it be what the Philippine market needs and wants? By choosing two sedans, the Altima (aka Teana) and the Sylphy to signal the beginning of a new chapter here, NPI may have overlooked the local market trend away from sedans towards mini-compact and subcompact cars, compact and midsize seven-seater SUVs and MPVs (multipurpose vehicles/people carriers.) NPI would have made a bigger splash if it had introduced the sporty Juke, which is assembled in Indonesia, or the Cube, a mini-compact, the Pathfinder, a seven-seater SUV and/or the Quest, a seven-seater minivan. But perhaps NPI is saving the best for the last?
One thing was made clear by the top Nissan executives who graced the NPI launch: The mother company in Japan is not investing to expand or upgrade its production facilities in Sta. Rosa, Laguna. The Sylphy, a compact sedan with a choice of either a 1.6- or 1.8-liter engine, will be imported from Thailand while the Altima, a premium midsize sedan with either a 2.5- or a 3.5-liter engine, will come from Japan.
In short, both are CBUs (completely built units) and it seems that the Almera will be the last Nissan car to be assembled in the Philippines. Let’s hope that the much-awaited Roadmap for the Philippine auto industry will offer enough attractive incentives to encourage Nissan and other global car manufacturers to increase their production activities here aside from stepping up their marketing and sales operations.
CORRECTION, PLEASE. In last week’s column, “Stop the slaughter on our roads and highways,” I quoted FIA president Jean Todt as saying that 8,000 lives were lost on the roads of the Philippines last year. I overlooked the figure 14,000 that Todt had scribbled above the 8,000 number in the hard copy of his speech. This means that the Philippines should be ranked by the Transportation Research Institute of the University of Michigan as the country with the world’s second highest road fatality rate after Namibia, since there were only 8,746 traffic-related deaths in Thailand in 2012.
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