Nissan Paid for July Sales, Share Bump, Edmunds.com Analysis Shows
August 29, 2008

By Michelle Krebs

Last month, observers marveled that Nissan was the only one of the Big 6 automakers to post an overall sales increase in July, an increase that helped it garner record high market share.

So how did Nissan do that when the U.S. in such a slump that even industry darling Honda, previously bucking the trend, went down with the market as well?

Simply put, Nissan's sales increase and higher market share were bought and paid for, according to Edmunds.com's analysis of incentive spending for July.

Nissan brand sales climbed 9.9 percent to 86,070 vehicles sold, led by its cars - the Versa, Sentra, Altima and redesignd Maxima. Nissan sold 8,701 Versas, a 14.4-percent increase from July 2007. Sentra posted a 16-percent increase with sales of 10,997 units. Altima sales were flat in July but are up nearly 11 percent for the year. Maxima sales rose nearly 7 percent.

But those sales increases came at a price. Nissan spent more on incentives in July -- an average $2,329 per vehicle sold -- than it had since August 2007, according to an analysis of Total Cost of Incentives (TCI) for July. Nissan also vastly outspent other mainstream Japanese, Korean and German brands. TCI is Edmunds.com's proprietary calculation of all incentive spending calculated on a volume-weighted basis.

Source: Edmunds.com

In addition, Nissan outspent import as well as domestic competitors in key car segments, specifically subcompact and compact, where its sales surged and in the midsize segment, where sales held strong.  

In the subcompact segment, Nissan spent $895 in incentives for every Versa sold. That was significantly more than what its competitors spent. Honda barely cracked the $100 mark with its Fit, which outsold the Versa by more than 3,500 units. Toyota spent a tad more than Honda on its Yaris but also achieved lower sales than did the Nissan Versa. Even General Motors spent less than Nissan -- an average $542 per unit -- on the Chevrolet Aveo.

Source: Edmunds.com

In the compact category, Nissan spent an average $2,008 for every Sentra sold. That was hundreds than even Chevrolet spent for the aging Cobalt or Ford for the Focus, both of which outsold the Sentra. Nissan spent about $1,500 more than Toyota did on the Corolla while Corolla sales were almost triple those of the Sentra. The story was similar with Honda Civic.

Source: Edmunds.com

  In the midsize segment, Nissan outsold its competitors as well with an average of $2,165 for every Altima sold. Nissan spent about twice as much as did Honda on its Accord, Toyota on the Camry and Chevy on the Malibu, the lowest spending of the four. Nissan also spent hundreds more than the next big spender, Ford on its Fusion. Even at that rate of spending, however, Altima sales remained flat, though they are up for the year and ahead of the Ford Fusion and Chevrolet Malibu for the month. Honda's Accord and Toyota's Camry outsold the Altima in July by roughly 13,000 and 18,000 units respectively.

Source: Edmunds.com

Nissan is expected to buck the industry's downward sales trend again in August, when it reports sales next Wednesday. Edmunds.com's forecasts Nissan will sell 98,000 vehicles in August, up 2.3 percent from August 2007 and 2.5 percent from July. Nissan's market share is expected to be 7.8 percent in August 2008, up from 6.5 percent in August 2007 but down from 8.4 percent in July 2008.

The question will be: at what cost?

Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds.com's director of pricing and industry analysis, provided the analysis for this report.

Photos by Nissan

1 - Nissan Versa

2 - Nissan Sentra

3 - Nissan Altima

Posted by Michelle Krebs at 11:03 AM under Analysis , Companies | Comments (0) | digg this | Seed Newsvine

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