Facing an excess of late-model 2017 vehicles and rising customer discounts by rivals, Nissan Motor will continue to target a “fair share of the pie” with huge discounts of its own, the automaker’s U.S. sales chief stated on Monday.
“It would be terrific if everybody got their incentive spending under control. That would be a fabulous thing for everybody,” Nissan’s Judy Wheeler informed Reuters. “However the one thing about our company, you have to stay in the game.”
“The marketplace is still really healthy and we want to make sure we’re still in the game,” she added.
Wheeler talked to Reuters after Nissan posted an 18.1 percent spike in U.S. sales for November versus the same month in last year.
Fellow automakers published mixed new automobile sales for the month.
Major automakers are coming off an all-time high for sales in last year and have been hiking consumer discounts in a saturated market to move passenger cars off dealer lots.
According to industry specialists J.D. Power and LMC, customer discounts have been over 10 percent of the average deal price for 16 of the last 17 months. Anything more than 10 percent is considered unhealthy for resale costs and therefore bad news for automakers.
Industry data for November given to Reuters reveal only Honda Motor came in below that level at 7.6 percent. Toyota Motor provided discount rates comparable to 10.1 percent of the average transaction cost, while Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV was at 12.8 percent. General Motors was at 12.9 percent and Ford Motor was at 14.6 percent.
Nissan was pretty above these automakers with an average discount of 18.6 percent.
Wheeler stated that unlike other automakers, Nissan has yet to bring 2018 model-year automobiles to U.S. showrooms and all of its 2017 model-year vehicles may not be gone until spring next year.
“That’s really hard to forecast since the reality is we did incredibly well in November,” she stated. “If we continue at that kind of a pace, then it might be quicker than exactly what we expected.”
However Wheeler stated the “big thing” impacting the auto market is the high discounts being provided by many producers.
“So really, it relates to what’s occurring in the market and attempting to ensure you get your reasonable share of the pie,” she stated.
