Nissan to spend $1.4 billion in China, ditching 'slow' response to fast market

By Kevin Krolicki

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Nissan Motor will invest an additional $1.4 billion in China, where it believes it is on track to reverse a punishing slide in sales with the launch of some 10 new vehicles in the coming years, its China chief said on Wednesday.

"We have been sort of slow in approaching the market with China moving so fast," said Stephen Ma, who shifted from Nissan’s chief financial officer to take charge of its China operations at the start of the year.

"The Chinese brands were too fast, to be honest. They were exceptional in how fast they moved. It took everybody by surprise. Now I think we have reset," he told a roundtable interview at the Shanghai auto show. 

Nissan sold fewer than 700,000 vehicles in China in 2024, less than half of what it sold just four years earlier. Japan’s third-largest automaker had to scale back its global sales forecast for the fiscal year ended last month due in part to its problems in China, its second-largest market.

As part of its efforts, Nissan aims to invest an additional 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) by the end of 2026 on the business, Ma said at the company's presentation at the auto show.  

Nissan also unveiled its first plug-in hybrid, an all-new pickup truck called the Frontier Pro. It also introduced the production version of the N7, a battery electric sedan that goes on sale this month with local partner, Dongfeng.

Ma said Nissan would launch 10 new energy vehicles in China by the summer of 2027, up from a previous commitment to roll out eight such vehicles by the end of next year. 

"We were always being criticised for being late to the plug-in hybrid trend, but now we have the first one. And we wanted to do something special with it," Ma said, referring to the Frontier Pro.

He said Nissan’s plans were to continue to export from China to "many other countries, except maybe one," referring to the United States, where sales for Chinese imports have been effectively blocked by tariffs since the Biden administration.

"Even though I have lived and worked in the U.S. for a long time, I could not have anticipated this," Ma said. "We will be exporting to many countries. We cannot announce which ones yet."

Ma said Nissan’s turnaround success would be judged by its share price and sales as the new models roll out, while the company’s new CEO would speak for specific targets.

He was referring to Ivan Espinosa, who took over as CEO when predecessor, Makoto Uchida, was forced to step down in March.

"He for sure put a huge objective on me: fast, fast, fast, fast," Ma said of his new boss.

Espinosa did not attend the Shanghai show. Uchida, who remains a Nissan director until June and ran the China business earlier in his career, joined Ma for a private meeting on Wednesday at the automaker’s booth. 

($1 = 7.2925 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Kevin Krolicki; additional reporting by Satoshi Sugiyama in Tokyo; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Bernadette Baum)