Nissan mulls pick-up, SUV assembly in PH

Nissan Motor Corp. is studying of reviving its car manufacturing operation in the Philippines, this time for sports utility vehicle (SUV) and pick-up truck models.

“We are studying collaboration with our Alliance partner Mitsubishi on producing Nissan SUVs and pickups in Mitsubishi’s plant in Santa Rosa. We will keep you updated as soon as we have more to announce,” said Atsushi Najima, president and managing director for Nissan Philippines, Inc., in response to questions submitted by Philippine media during a recent online global press conference on the company’s Fiscal Year 2019 Financial Results and Mid-Term Plan Announcements.

At present, NPI is barely doing car assembly in the Philippines given the fact that it is producing Almera, a passenger car model, on a CKD (completely knocked down) basis only. It also stopped the assembly of Urvan, its passenger van model, when it had a full model change in 2015. Urvan, another volume model sold 8,108 units in 2019 and 6,855 units in 2018, is now imported from Japan.

In terms of pick-up trucks, Nissan’s Navara is the country’s second best selling pick-up model in the country. Last year, NPI sold 16,782 units of Navara and 19,127 units the previous year. This bread and butter model of NPI is imported from Thailand,

Bringing back pick-up truck vehicle production in the country also makes sense given the huge local demand of this versatile vehicle.

In 2019, data showed that six car companies imported from Thailand 67,833 pick-up trucks, a hefty 26.35 percent increase from 53,683 units in 2018.

As such, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has plans of making good its threat to impose safeguard measure on imported vehicles, targeting pick-up models, to curb the surge in imports, revive the local car manufacturing in the country and save jobs.

For SUV models, NPI’s current models include Terra imported from Thailand, and Patrol, Xtrail and Juke from Japan. Other Nissan vehicle models available in the country include GTR (sports car from Japan), and Sylphy (passenger car from Thailand).

The relatively new Nissan organization in the Philippines has seen aggressive positioning in the local motor vehicle market.

With that, the Nissan brand made a comeback into the top three biggest car companies in the country.

During the recent Nissan global press conference, CEO Makoto Uchida said the company will work with Alliance partners Renault and Mitsubishi Motors to share their assets, including products and technologies while developing businesses at an appropriate size as markets grow.

In ASEAN, Nissan announced it will close its operations in Indonesia and make Thailand its regional production base.