Cratering sales of Nissan small cars to recover soon

TOKYO — Nissan said cratering sales of some of the brand's most popular compact vehicles should start to recover this quarter as the company ramps up microchip-constrained production.

Slumping sales of the Sentra and Versa small cars and Kicks compact crossover helped fuel an overall 6.9 percent decline in global sales at Nissan Motor Co. for the October to December quarter.

COO Ashwani Gupta said sales of those models, all made in Mexico, have been torpedoed by severe production constraints caused by the ongoing global semiconductor shortage.

"Where we faced the challenge was Sentra, Kicks and Versa, which dropped 40 percent with respect to last year because of the very particular semiconductor shortage for these cars," Gupta said Thursday in announcing the Japanese carmaker's fiscal third-quarter financial results.

Traditionally, these popular nameplates combine to comprise about 18 percent of U.S. dealer inventory. But recently, they have accounted for as little as 5 percent of stock.

North American production of the Versa, for example, plunged 45 percent in 2022, to 61,799 vehicles for the full year, as U.S. sales of the popular economy car tanked 78 percent, according to the Automotive News Data Center. Sentra sales dropped 40 percent, while Kicks fell 34 percent.

Gupta said output and sales will start to recover in the current quarter ending March 31.

"Now, from quarter four, when we are ramping up our production for Sentra, Kicks and Versa because the product mix in the United States is changing, we will recover," Gupta said.

Nissan said demand for smaller, affordable product is on the rise as customers react to rising fuel prices, sticker prices and interest rates.

Availability of the Z sports car and Ariya all-electric crossover will also gradually improve. Wait times for certain configurations of these nameplates currently reach one year, Gupta said.

"This is where we are working hard to recover," he said.

Output at the Tochigi plant in Japan that makes the two vehicles increased 90 percent in the October to December quarter, compared with the quarter before. And it will advance another 70 percent in the current quarter. "This is how we want to ramp up Tochigi," Gupta said.

On the plus side, he said supply and sales of higher-margin vehicles, such as the Rogue and Pathfinder crossovers as well as the Altima sedan, are robust and growing.

North American retail sales for Japan's No. 3 automaker fell 2.1 percent to 256,000 vehicles in the fiscal third quarter ended Dec. 31. The decline came even as Nissan's production recovered a bit on a global basis. Worldwide output increased 9 percent to 909,000 units in the period.

The production increase is fueling a gradual recovery in global inventories. Nissan said dealer and wholesaler inventories bottomed out around 230,000 vehicles in the April to June quarter, and expanded to around 380,000 units in the last three months.

Before the pandemic, they stood at around 800,000.

Overall, a better mix of more profitable models teamed with foreign exchange rate gains to more than double parent company operating profit in the October to December quarter.

Nissan saw operating profit soar to 133.1 billion yen ($1.01 billion) in the three months, from 52.2 billion yen ($395.9 million) the year before. The yen's implosion in value against the U.S. and Canadian dollars chipped in a 67.9 billion yen ($514.9 million) windfall.

Because of lingering microchip shortages and continued uncertainty about the COVID-19 pandemic, Nissan cut its global sales outlook for the current fiscal year ending March 31.

It now expects worldwide volume of 3.4 million vehicles, representing a 12 percent drop from the previous fiscal year. Nissan originally predicted volume would increase 3.2 percent to 4.0 million vehicles and has already cut the forecast once, to 3.7 million in November.

Despite the downgraded sales trajectory, Nissan kept its earnings guidance unchanged.

Nissan expects operating profit to climb 46 percent, to 360.0 billion yen ($2.73 billion) in the full fiscal year to March 31, even as net income retreats 28 percent to 155.0 billion yen ($1.14 billion).