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NISSAN Australia sold almost five times more SUVs than passenger cars last year, with high-riding wagons accounting for 41,119 units – 61.5 per cent of the brand’s total – compared with 8682 sedans, hatches and sportscars (13.0 per cent).

Despite the lopsided result, the Japanese car-maker says the numbers are not a concern.

Speaking to GoAuto at the launch of the Nismo sports brand and the high-performance GT-R Nismo supercar this month, Nissan Australia managing director and CEO Richard Emery said the result was due to a weaker passenger car range compared with its SUV portfolio.

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“It’s not a worry, that’s the way it is, and that’s because of the products being offered,” he said.

“On the other hand, that means we’re probably missing opportunity in passenger cars where we used to be really strong, and that’s just about product offering and timing.”

SUVs are expected to overtake passenger cars and become the top-selling segment in the marketplace before too long, having narrowed the gap last year with a sales increase of 8.0 per cent (to 441,017 units) and a fall of 5.7 per cent for passenger sector (to 486,257).

That gave SUVs a 35.4 per cent share of the entire market, compared to 42.9 per cent for passenger cars.

The trend is continuing this year, with only 793 units separating the two segments in January (passenger: 34,920, SUV: 34,127).

No Pulse: Nissan has sold through most of its leftover stock of Micra and Pulsar hatchbacks since its announcement in April last year that both models will be discontinued.

However, Mr Emery said Nissan does not expect SUVs to overtake passenger cars for at least another four years, and even if they do, the two segments will remain close in terms of volume.

“We aren’t predicting it will cross over yet, we think it’s still 2021-2022 before it crosses over, and of course to some extent it’s also product-driven,” he said.

“If there is a fantastic passenger car product offering that changes the segment, it could move back again. I don’t think it’s going to pass passenger cars and go screaming ahead.”

Mr Emery said the categorisation of ‘SUV’ distorts the sales data as it gives the perception that customers are actively seeking to buy a crossover, when in fact they might just want a hatchback.

“If you look at some of those products that we call an ‘SUV’, they’re not really,” he said. “People don’t buy them and say, ‘I’m going off to buy an SUV’ – they go out to buy a small hatchback and they finish up in a Juke or whatever else.

Nissan QASHQAI

“It’s interesting to look at, we all think about SUVs and market segments and growth, but customers just want to buy a car.”

Last year, Nissan’s passenger car sales dropped by 26.9 per cent compared with 2015, with all models (except the GT-R flagship) – the mid-size Altima, Leaf EV, Pulsar small car, Micra micro car and 370Z sportscar – experiencing double-digit slides.

In contrast, its SUV sales rose by 3.0 per cent, with the Qashqai crossover up by 16.1 per cent to 12,259 units – more than the entire passenger car line-up – and the X-Trail surging ahead by 5.2 per cent to 18,903 units, making it the fourth-best seller in the mid-size SUV segment behind the Mazda CX-5, Hyundai Tucson and Toyota RAV4.

The brand’s light-commercial offerings – the Navara pick-up and the Patrol cab-chassis – also bounced back last year, contributing 17,025 units (+19.4 per cent) to the overall 2016 Nissan total of 66,826, which was up 1.2 per cent over the brand’s 2015 tally.

Mr Emery said the company’s overall sales result was steady, with growth hampered by a lack of supply on key SUV models, as well as new-generation passenger car products that will not come on stream until mid-2019.

Nissan Micra

“It was kind of a stable year I’d say, it was okay,” he said. “I mean I’m a car guy, I want to sell more cars, so it goes without saying that we would have preferred to sell more cars.

“But we were happy with our year, we felt there was some missed opportunity in Navara – we probably could have done a bit better in Navara. We were really maxed out on X-Trail and Qashqai in terms of supply, so those cars were performing really well.

“So our SUV line-up continues to do really well, passenger car we’re challenged on in terms of product offering and we need to fix that in the next year and a half.

“But in general, yeah, there’s certainly more opportunity in Nissan from a pure volume perspective, some of it is product driven, some of it is supply driven, some of it is, you know, we need to do a better job. So all in all, it was an okay year.”

Mr Emery confirmed that last remnants of Micra and Pulsar hatch stock had gone, with the few remaining vehicles around the country identified as dealer demos and loan cars. These are expected to be gone by the end of March.

Nissan X-Trail

Since the product cull, Nissan Australia has been in rebuilding mode, preparing itself for expected growth in the medium-term, according to Mr Emery.

“We’ve certainly stabilised the business environment for Nissan in Australia, so now we have a business structure in Australia, a business style, a network, a relationship with our dealers, that we’re ready for some growth,” he said.

“To kick that growth off, we clearly need the next-generation of product lines, and you’ve heard (Nissan CEO) Carlos (Ghosn) go and talk about Nissan’s future in autonomous driving technologies, and those cars start rolling out kind of at the end of the decade.

“I think we’re going to be pretty stable over the next couple of years to be honest, but once we get to (20)19 and (20)20, I think that the opportunity for Nissan Australia starts to really ramp up.”

By Tung Nguyen

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