Nissan PH celebrates 9th anniversary
Nissan Philippines Inc. was first established in 2013
It wasn't too long ago when Nissan's operations in the Philippines weren't a unified thing. Two different companies handled two different aspects of one brand.
That all changed in 2013 when Nissan Philippines, Inc. (NPI) was established and officially commenced operations as the new national sales company from 2014 onwards That means they're celebrating their ninth anniversary.
“With the establishment of NPI, Nissan will proactively improve and enhance Nissan's brand awareness in the Philippines,” said Kenji Naito, NPI's first president in December 2013. “We will introduce new and exciting products into the market and strive to improve the total customer experience.”
Since then, Nissan Philippines, Inc. started its ascendancy from a divided brand to one that was committed to driving forward. They had a lofty goal of hitting an 8% market share at the time. In 2014, Nissan had sold just 7,473 units for the calendar year (they like operating on a fiscal year basis), which was good for 2.8% market share; that was just good for 9th overall on the charts.
Then the company started to gain ground from one year to the next as they introduced new models like the X-Trail in late 2014, but it was the Navara a few months later that proved crucial. In 2015 they went up to 7th overall with 11,420 units sold for a market share of 3.5%. In 2016, sales increased to 16,897 units for a 4.18% share, followed by 24,995 units sold in 2017 for a 5.27% market share.
What really made Nissan Philippines a force to reckon with in the market was the arrival of the all-new Terra. With the Philippine market being strongly receptive to SUVs (particularly PPVs), Nissan's sales grew significantly with 34,952 units in 2018. That meant they had an 8.7% market share which was their target, and they rose up the sales charts to 4th overall.
They sustained the momentum into 2019 with 42,694 units sold for an outstanding 10.25% market share. That also means they have risen to third overall in the sales charts just behind the perennial 1-2 of Toyota and Mitsubishi. The pandemic hurt the sales of the entire auto industry in 2020 and 2021 (and in 2022), but Nissan is still maintaining their strong position in the market with a lot of new models already in the market and more on the way.
They have also undergone a near-full change of their entire lineup. Nissan has launched the X-Trail, the Navara, the Terra, the Juke, and the NV350 Urvan. They also were able to finally launch the GT-R, the 370Z, and revamped the NISMO brand in the Philippines. More recently, they have been updating their model line with the new Terra, new Navara, the Patrol, the all-new Almera turbo, and the Livina MPV. But what will define Nissan in the coming years will be electrification, something they are already bringing to the public with the Leaf EV as well as the Kicks E-Power.
Since being established in 2013, Nissan Philippines has moved offices a few times as the company grew, and has also had five presidents. The current president is Juan Manuel Hoyos of Colombia.
