Nissan may have turned a corner, Volvo wants 2021 to be epic, and Honda. All that and more in it The morning shift before February 9, 2021.
First Gear: Nissan sees results
Nissan’s story of the past two years is inextricably linked the story of former CEO Carlos Ghosn, for understandable reasons, because that story is about a former green beret, private jets and cases for musical instruments. IIn the meantime, those still with Nissan are trying to save what’s left, including a massive setback in Nissan’s strategy under Ghosn, which was all about volume.
They are starting to see results.
From Bloomberg:
Japan’s second-largest automaker forecast a net loss of 530 billion yen ($ 5.1 billion) for the full year through March, smaller than the previously projected 615 billion yen. Nissan posted operating profit of 27.1 billion yen for the three months to December. Analysts had predicted an average loss of 46.8 billion yen.
The past quarter saw a recovery for the global auto market as a whole, with retail sales reaching previous year levels in the US and higher than China, Nissan Chief Operating Officer Ashwani Gupta said at a briefing Tuesday. “We are gaining momentum,” he said.
Nissan has been engaged in an aggressive turnaround plan for about nine months that involves cutting global production capacity by about one-fifth and producing 12 new models in the 18 months to November to refresh the aging line-up and stagnate interest from to awaken the consumer.
Sales of new models, such as the Rogue SUV, which debuted in the US in October, are up, limiting the decline in Nissan’s total global sales in November and December to less than 10% year-over-year, compared with a decrease of more than 30% in the first half of 2020.
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As fun as the Ghosn story was, I would rather Nissan do what it does best again, every 10 year or so something interesting.
2nd gear: Volvo takes off in 2021
Volvo sold 661,713 cars last year, almost double the number of cars sold in 2010. That number is less than the 800,000 Volvos. originally hoped to sell in 2020 before the pandemic happened, but those aspirations have only been delayed until this year.
From Automotive News:
[Volvo Cars CEO Hakan Samuelsson] is optimistic that Volvo had the best second half in its 93-year history, with sales of 391,751 vehicles worldwide during the last six months of 2020.
It started 2021 with its best-ever January with a monthly global sales increase of 30 percent to 59,588 vehicles on strong demand from Europe (+9 percent), the US (+32 percent) and China (+91 percent). The big increase in China came because Volvo sales were hampered in January 2020 by the COVID-19 outbreak in the country.
When asked if 2021 would also be the year in which Volvo achieves its long-standing target of 800,000 worldwide sales, Samuelsson was a bit more cautious.
“We see continued strong growth and let’s see where we land,” he said.
For context, Tesla delivered nearly 500,000 cars last year, while Toyota, the world’s largest automaker by volume, delivered 9.5 million.
3rd gear: Honda also expects a big 2021
Things are returning to normal. I mean “normal”. I mean “” normal. “”
From Reuters:
Honda reported a 67 percent profit increase in the last quarter due to increased demand and cost savings.
Operating profit for the three months to Dec. 31 was 277.7 billion yen ($ 2.65 billion), Honda said in a statement Tuesday.
“Vehicle sales were higher than the same period last year since October, mainly due to the launch of the new N-ONE,” Seiji Kuraishi, Honda’s chief operating officer, said at a press conference, referring to the launch of the new N-ONE. the company’s micro city car in Japan in November. .
Honda increased its forecasted earnings for the year to 520 billion yen ($ 5 billion), up from the 420 billion yen earnings it predicted three months ago.
The N-One, if you’re not familiar, completely rules.
4th Gear: I’m already very tired of reading about this damn chip shortage
Reuters says that the chip shortage will cost Honda and Nissan a quarter of a million cars this year.
But Honda lowered its sales target by 100,000 vehicles, or 2.2%, on Tuesday to 4.5 million cars, while Nissan lowered its target by 150,000 vehicles, or 3.6%, to 4.015 million units, due to a chip shortage both. forced companies to curb their production.
“Popular models that sell well have been hit hard by a shortage of semiconductors,” said Seiji Kuraishi, Honda’s Chief Operating Officer at an online news conference. “We had to swap and adjust the production plans. But that was not enough, ”he added.
The global auto industry has been struggling with a chip shortage since late last year, exacerbated in some cases by the former US government’s sanctions against Chinese chip factories.
That part of the chip shortage can be directly attributed to former President Donald Trump is the least surprising.
5th gear: more about Apple and Hyundai
Bloomberg has an interesting story from day two about the impact of the Apple and Hyundai deal to build a car apparently falling apart. Ultimately, Bloomberg concludes, this could be the best.
While it’s a lesson in playing the big leagues, the Apple car experience could prove to be a good thing for Chung and Hyundai, refocusing their ambitions, according to Kim Jin-woo, analyst at Korea Investment & Securities Co. , which Hyundai considers a purchase.
“Hyundai has the know-how to manage supply chains with its experience of more than four decades,” said Kim. “The Apple news could have become a catalyst for stock prices, but Hyundai has developed its own projects for future mobility.”
Investors have already started to listen. Shares in Hyundai Motor were up nearly 60 percent in 2020, while shares in Kia were up 41 percent – an impressive result in a year many automakers would rather forget, given the coronavirus pandemic weighed on sales. Hyundai won 2 percent on Tuesday, which brings the profit since January to 24.5 percent.
Kia was renamed last month with a new, sleeker logo, removing the oval emblem and announcing a new ‘Movement That Inspires’ slogan to replace its older ‘Power to surprise’ mantra.
“Hyundai’s ultimate goal is not to become an Apple automotive supplier,” said Kim Joon-sung, an analyst at Meritz Securities Co. in Seoul, which Hyundai also rates as a purchase. “It would like to be the next Tesla.”
A partnership with Apple sounds good on paper and can cause the stock price to surge in the short term, but the actual work of making the damn thing seems like a big lift, when you could spend that time making your own thing .
Downside: there was a war
Neutral: how are you?
I can’t find a useful clip of it online for my life, but today’s mood is very much that George Clooney is getting into a taxi at the end of Michael Clayton.
“Just drive.”