日产汽车：中国销售低迷在10月“加剧”Nissan says China sales slump 'intensified' through October

TOKYO -- Nissan Motor said the slump in China's auto market "intensified" through the end of last month, adding uncertainty to the Japanese automaker's turnaround as it seeks to return to a full-year net profit.

"China remains our biggest challenge, with limited visibility on how market demand will develop," Nissan President and CEO Ivan Espinosa said at the automaker's earnings news conference on Wednesday.

He added that the downward pressure in China had "intensified from July through October," while stressing that Nissan was outperforming the broader market despite the downturn.

Nissan announced a revision to its global sales forecast for the current fiscal year ending March 2027 to around 3 million vehicles, 150,000 below the previous forecast, mainly due to weaker sales in China.

The company expects its China sales to decline in a range of 38.7% to 43.3% year on year. While the company expects sales to increase in markets including Japan and the U.S., its overall global sales are projected to fall by 4.8% to 5.7%.

Espinosa's comment comes as Western and Asian automakers in China continue to be battered by difficult market conditions, as weak consumer sentiment compounds fierce competition from local electric vehicle makers.

Nissan maintained its full-year financial forecast, including for net profit, issued in May but revised its exchange rate forecast on the assumption of a weaker yen, which can provide a tailwind for the automaker. The company changed the outlook to 157 yen to the U.S. dollar from 150 yen and 183 yen to the euro from 175 yen.

Nissan Motor President and CEO Ivan Espinosa speaks at a news conference on Nov. 11 in Yokohama, Japan. He said that the slump in China's auto market remains the company's biggest challenge. The company last achieved a full-year net profit in the fiscal year that ended in March 2024.

The CEO added that one of Nissan's "weak areas" in China is its image as a maker of affordable gasoline-powered vehicles, a segment that has been particularly hard hit by the market contraction. "We are working very heavily on transforming our brand perception and accessing new customers," he added.

Nissan Motor said on Wednesday that its net loss for the six months ended September narrowed to 39.7 billion yen ($249 million), from a net loss of 221.9 billion yen a year earlier, as cost reductions and a weaker yen helped the automaker navigate a major restructuring.

The automaker said that operating profit was 80 billion yen, compared with an operating loss of 27.6 billion yen a year earlier, while net revenue rose 8.8% to 6 trillion yen.

Nissan is undergoing a major restructuring plan dubbed "Re:Nissan" as it seeks to cut costs by reducing its production footprint from 17 plants to 10 and cutting annual production capacity by 1 million vehicles to 2.5 million by the fiscal year ending March 2027.

The company has been struggling to make its core automotive business profitable, weighed down by a high-cost structure and a legacy of prioritizing production scale over profitability. Its operating margin last year was 0.5%, remaining low compared with even its Japanese peers.

Nissan said it has already achieved 73% of the targeted 500 billion yen in cost reductions under Re:Nissan in the first half of the fiscal year.

It is also seeking to move away from developing vehicles primarily for global markets toward tailoring individual products more closely to regional preferences.

Nissan has also followed other automakers in adopting China's faster, lower-cost approach to vehicle development, positioning the country as a manufacturing and development hub for vehicles exported to markets including Southeast Asia.

The company also said it will expand exports of vehicles it makes in China to overseas markets, from two models in two markets currently to "five products and 12 clusters of countries," according to Espinosa.

The move is aimed at "defending ourselves in these markets from the very aggressive Chinese [car manufacturers] that are coming with very cost-competitive products," he said. Nissan is seeking to make greater use of its Chinese manufacturing base to compete with Chinese rivals overseas.

The strategy echoes the overseas expansion of Chinese EV makers such as BYD, as intense domestic competition pushes them to seek growth abroad. In the first half of this year, BYD generated more than 50% of its total revenue from overseas markets for the first time.

Despite mounting uncertainties, including volatile copper and aluminum prices, Nissan Chief Financial Officer George Leondis said on Wednesday that achieving net profit for the fiscal year remains "paramount," citing strong sales in the U.S. and Japan and expectations for higher operating profit in the second half.