Tokyo - Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. reported today production, sales and export figures for April 2001 one week after announcing the record of a consolidated net profit of 331.1 billion yen for the fiscal year 2000. For April 2001, global production was down 4.4% while total unit sales for the three main regions of Japan, North America and Europe were slightly down 3.9%.
1. Production Nissan's global production in April was down 4.4% from a year ago to 188,751.
Domestic production totaled 95,037, down 10.9% from a year ago due to decreased export mainly to the U.S. and Europe, while production for domestic sales remained stable.
Nissan's overseas production in April 2001 totaled 93,714 units, up 2.9% from April 2000.
Production in the U.S. fell 12.1% as the market continue to slow while the company continued efforts to reduce inventory levels. Mexican production grew by 22.7% due to strong demand of the Sentra for the North American markets. UK saw a drop of 6.8% in production while Spain achieved a 58.1% increase to meet strong sales of Almera Tino and 4WD vehicles in the market.
In other regions April 2001 production decreased 6.4%, however, Thailand saw production nearly triple (+280.1%) due to strong demand for pickup trucks and the Wingroad.
2. Sales Nissan's domestic sales for April 2001 rose 1.2% to 46,368 units. Sales for new models of the Primera, Cima, X-TRAIL and Bluebird Sylphy remained strong. Nissan's domestic market share was 17.0%, a 0.1 point decrease compared to last year.
Nissan's sales in the U.S. declined by 16.3% as the market continued to slow, down 10.0% from April 2000. In spite of strong sales of Q45 and stable sales of Maxima, Nissan faced competition particularly in the truck segment. Heavy incentives from the competitors also had an impact on Nissan's sales in the passenger car segment. Canada and Mexico saw sales increase of 18.2% and 19.7% respectively, both driven by strong demand for the Sentra.
Nissan's sales in Europe slightly increased by 0.5% with favorable sales of Almera Tino and 4WD vehicles.
3. Export Nissan's exports in April 2001 decreased 29.0% to 41,970 units due to market forecast of slowdown in the U.S., localization of production mainly in Europe and continuous global effort to tightly control inventory.
