Carlos Ghosn Predicts Record Year, No Double Dipping

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

A beaming and relaxed Carlos Ghosn dispensed a little insider knowledge tonight in Tokyo and let (surely not involuntarily) slip that there will be “significantly higher numbers tomorrow” when Nissan announces its predictions for the current fiscal year.

“Tomorrow, the company officially will put the forecast for the fiscal year 2011. When I announced the financial results in May, we said that our sales in 2011 will probably be higher than in 2010. Everybody was stunned and said I am very optimistic. Well, we are going to show you the numbers tomorrow, and they will be significantly higher than in 2010.”

Interviewed by Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Ingrassia at the Thomson Reuters Newsmaker event at the spiffy Reuters Tokyo bureau, Ghosn predicted 2011 to become “record year of sales and total volume produced for the industry.”

Recession you say? Ghosn doesn’t believe in a double dip recession.

“The recovery will not happen in a linear fashion. We will have two steps forward, one step sideways, two steps behind, three steps forward – it will be a bit chaotic before we come back to growth. We are seeing crab movements, and we will do this until there is a clear recovery. My fundamental feeling is we are not going to a double dip. However, we are not on this boulevard of growth everybody is hoping for.”

From what we currently have, it appears as if Nissan is escaping the March tsunami far less affected than Toyota or Honda. Nissan has a smaller percentage of production in Japan and is growing faster in emerging markets.

We were not allowed to take pictures during the event, such as not to steal the thunder from the video, which is available in full length on YouTube. To prove that the story wasn’t researched using YouTube, I enter the picture above into evidence. The guy in the blue shirt, front row, left side of the aisle is me. It just looks like I’m kissing Ghosn’s derriere.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

More by Bertel Schmitt

Comments
Join the conversation
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
Next