Nissan production falls worldwide except in Mexico

Nissan Motor said on Thursday its global production fell for a fifth straight month in October, led by downshifts at most of its manufacturing hubs except for Mexico.

While global sales also dropped for a seventh month, sales in Nissan’s core market, the US, grew for the first time in three months.

Earlier this month, Nissan announced plans to axe 9,000 jobs and 20% of its manufacturing capacity globally to cut costs, after the third-biggest Japanese carmaker behind and Honda suffered sales slumps in China and the US.

The threat of US tariffs is now clouding the struggling carmaker’s restructuring efforts.

Nissan’s worldwide output for October decreased 6% from the same month a year earlier to 290,848 vehicles. Production both in the US and China fell 15%, while output in Britain plunged 23% and production in Japan shrank 4%.

A bright spot was Mexico, where production rose 12% to 70,382 vehicles. That meant nearly one in four Nissan cars worldwide was made in Mexico last month.

However, that could come under pressure as US president-elect Donald Trump this week said he would impose a 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico upon taking office in January.

Nissan has exported about 300,000 vehicles from Mexico to the US this year, and will closely monitor tariff plans, CEO Makoto Uchida said shortly after Trump’s re-election.

In October, Nissan sold 13% more vehicles in the US, its first growth since July, led by compact sedan Sentra. Nissan’s sales also rose in Mexico and Canada but fell by double-digit rates in China and Europe to result in a 3% drop globally.

By contrast, Toyota’s global sales increased 1.4% to mark the first in five months in October, while its global production continued to decrease due in part to a production halt in the US.

Reuters