This article is from the WeChat public account: Auto Industry (ID: autoreport) , author: Zhaoling Wei, from FIG title: IC photo
On April 1, Infiniti ’s new global president, Mike Colleran, (Mike Colleran) is about to take office.
Mike Colleran
Mike Collerland joined Nissan in 2011 as Vice President of Sales for Canada, and since then he has also been Vice President of Infiniti Americas, responsible for the US, Canada and Mexico operations.
Mike Collerland currently serves as Vice Chairman of the Infiniti Management Board. After serving as global president, he will report to Christian Vandenhende, chief quality officer of Nissan (Christian Vandenhende) May Chairman of Infiniti.
Nissan hopes that Mike Collerland can promote the global restructuring of its luxury brand Infiniti and reverse the decline of the brand.
Infiniti’s problem
Infiniti’s business watershed appeared in 2018. Prior to this, Infiniti’s sales continued to go uphill for eight consecutive years. When it reached a peak in 2017, global sales were 246,000 units, a growth rate of 7.1% that year.
But in 2018, mainly affected by the decline in the US market, Infiniti ’s global sales fell by 5.2%. In this year, the Chinese market was also on the verge of losing ground, with only 44,000 units sold throughout the year, far from the stated goal of achieving 100,000 units sold in China in 2018.
Contrary to the rapid turnaround of Infiniti, almost all passenger car categories in the Chinese auto market this year have struggled in the cold winter, with only luxury cars outperforming and growing against the trend. The total sales volume of 20 luxury brands reached 2.8 million units, an increase of more than 9% year-on-year, and the market share accounted for 8.9% of the overall automotive market.
In 2019, Infiniti’s sales in the United States continued to fall by 21.1%, and the annual sales were less than 118,000 units. To make matters worse, sales of all its models are declining.
Infiniti began to think about strategic adjustments. Against the backdrop of difficult sales to stop bleeding, Infiniti’s “retraction” was expected. Speaking of Infiniti’s business restructuring plan, it is a protracted battle announced from March 2019. Infiniti plans to withdraw from the Western European market in 2020, focus on superior resources, and focus on China and the United States. In the next five years, it will launch five new cars in China and strengthen its SUV lineup in North America.
In recent years, sales in the Chinese and American markets have accounted for more than 80% of Infiniti’s global sales, while its sales in Western Europe in 2018 have almost halved. The Western European market with annual sales of only 5,800 units was abandoned, and the continued downturn in two important markets directly caused the decline of Infiniti.
In fact, it is not difficult to see In addition to the impact of the environment, the key points that Infiniti has been questioned in the past few years are that the product sequence is incomplete and the technology is behind the times.
In the US market, Infiniti currently has only 5 models on sale. Although there are 10 optional models on the Chinese market, sales are still concentrated on two domestic vehicles, the Q50L and QX50. However, after the QX50 was made in 2015, Infiniti has not introduced any models made in China anymore.. Although it is not too late for Infiniti to achieve domestic production in the luxury brand, it only introduces models sold in the US market, and the latter is also very tight.
Infiniti China official website optional models
From a technical point of view, in fact, it has been one of Infiniti ’s main selling points for a long time. The VQ35 / VQ37 series and VQ25, which have won the “Top Ten Global Engines” award for 15 consecutive years, have supported Infiniti as a luxury brand. Board. However, environmental regulations have increasingly strict requirements on vehicle displacement. VQ37 (3.7L) and VQ25 (2.5L) The large displacement naturally aspirated engine faces the risk of being forced out.
In 2017, Infiniti announced the VC-TURBO, a variable compression ratio engine that has undergone a 20-year R & D cycle. But when the VC-TURBO was launched on the market in 2018, the era of new energy was near.
Infiniti plans to launch new models equipped with EV electric and e-POWER technology starting in 2021. By 2025, 50% of Infiniti’s global sales will come from electric vehicles. At the same time, as of 2022, 25% of Infiniti’s product matrix in China will be electric vehicles, and will be fully electrified by 2025.
At the Shanghai Auto Show 2019, Infiniti brought two Qs Inspiration and QX Inspiration concept cars, which were personally operated by former BMW design director Karim Habi. Among them, Infiniti’s first sports sedan Qs Inspiration Concept will be in Produced in China, but the distance concept car may be on the marketIt will take another three years.
Qs Inspiration Concept
In order to show the importance it attaches to the world’s largest new energy vehicle market, Infiniti also specially formulated a “5 in 5” strategy in China in 2018, and plans to launch 5 new vehicles within 5 years, in addition to already listed In addition to the new QX50, the rest are plug-in hybrid models and pure electric models.
Competition is back to basics. Products and technologies that keep up with the times are the foundation of the brand. Infiniti needs to make up lessons as soon as possible.
China market with growth potential
In addition to increasing the difficulty of Infiniti’s business restructuring, in addition to intensified external competition, there is also management instability.
In the past year, the position of Infiniti ’s global president has been welcomed, and even the headquarters office has moved from Hong Kong to Japan in 2019 to promote business concentration and streamlining.
In 2019, Roland Kruger (Roland Krüger) resigned after serving as Infiniti ’s global president for 5 years. Roland was born as an automotive designer. Rumors have it that Ghosn, who was Nissan’s chairman in 2017, was not satisfied with the results of Infiniti’s leadership under Roland. Since then, Roland’s departure has heralded. Roland, who has frequently appeared on important occasions in China and the United States, began to disappear this year, replaced by Nissan in the United States.Sales Director Christian Monier (Christian Meunier) .
In January 2019, Roland resigns and Christian Monier takes over.
Unexpectedly, just four months later, Monier “hopped” to FCA and became the global president of Jeep. I remember Ghosn revealed that his representative, the Renault-Nissan Alliance, had negotiated a merger with the FCA, but it was gone because of the arrest. Today, FCA has reached a restructuring with PSA. But Nissan said Monir’s resignation had nothing to do with Ghosn.
After Monier’s departure, Steen Van Den Ender temporarily serves as Infiniti ’s global president. Mike Colum, then vice president of Infiniti’s global division, reported directly to him. Previously, in addition to being responsible for the quality and customer satisfaction of Nissan, Vandende also oversaw Nissan’s management committees in North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.
After Stein Van den Ender takes over the position of Monier, he needs to continue to restructure the global business. At the same time, Nissan’s parent company is facing the dilemma of slumping profits and substantial job losses.
In February, Nissan released its third fiscal quarter report for 2019, and the scene was extremely bleak. The report shows that from April to December 2019, Nissan ’s revenue was 757.3 billion yen, a year-on-year decrease of 12.5%; operating profit was 54.3 billion yen, a year-on-year decrease of 82.7%; operating margin was 0.7%, a figure in the same period last year 3.7%; net profit was 39.3 billion yen, plunging 87.6%.
In terms of sales volume, from April to December 2019, Nissan sold 3.697 million vehicles worldwide, down 8.1% year-on-year, and Nissan’s sales in multiple markets including Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East were all declining.
The parent company is already overwhelmed. Today, Mike Colum is about to become the new Infiniti Global President. He is facing