And we’re off!!
and walking…
Nissan corporate is in disarray if we are being honest. Ghosn and others under indictment and in jail…others fleeing the company before they get fired…Renault unsure of what to do with its position and influence on the company, its ownership of Mitsubishi still rudderless and sharply declining sales across the board in the US with a portfolio of generally good quality but uninspiring models…ugh…Oh…and the Next Gen Frontier? Likely not out soon enough to blunt the rush of small truck buyers who are scooping up the new Ford Ranger in droves (2,153 sales in January and likely to increase exponentially in February)
So Nissan truck sales in January ‘19? A mixed bag but perhaps better than Nissan as a whole in the US. Nissan sales overall were down 20% from January ‘18.
Nissan moved 6,062 Frontiers…a near 3% increase from a year ago and again, stunning for a 15 year old platform, and the most its moved in this period since ‘16.
As an FYI, the total Frontiers moved in ‘18 of 79,646 was the second highest annual figure EVER for this generation…only 2016 saw more Frontiers sold…all of which is COMPLETELY without marketing or any real push by the manufacturer…The highest ever sold for the Frontier came in the previous generation in 2000 with about 109K sold.
The Titan? Well….again and again I read in the press—”its a great truck with good quality but overlooked even when compared to Toyota’s Tundra”…well…there’s a reason for that…Nissan brought it out to minimal fanfare and has since largely orphaned its support. When you are bombarded with Ford, Chevy, Dodge and even Toyota adds 24-7 on their trucks you can’t compete for share of mind. Nissan has refused to acknowledge this.
Titan sales in January were just 3,031, falling well short of ‘18’s 4,051 which came on the heals of a strong College Football tie-in campaign. It does however mark the 2nd highest # of units sold since 2015 with only last year selling more.