Renault's in Trouble, Ghosn May Step Down From Nissan
This morning, Bloomberg took a look at Renault’s epic implosion in the past year. Financially, the big French carmaker saw its stock nosedive 55% in the past twelve months. Sales are down, and Renault’s European market share has fallen from 9.7% in 2005 to 7.7% so far this year. And Renault’s traditional strong market segments (i.e. mini-minivans) have been taking a beating from other companies, including French rivals Peugeot and Citroen. To make matters worse, VW is about to come out with a new Golf three weeks before Renault releases its new Megane, and the Golf gets better fuel economy than the Megane across the board. Nissan – of which Renault owns 44% – is at huge risk in the US economy (goodbye Murano, Pathfinder, Xterra, Armada, QX56, FX35, and Quest sales). Oh, and Renault’s big hope for making their estimates for the year is a €160 million royalty payment from Russian manufacturer AvtoVaz for licensing the design of the supercheap Dacia Logan. And speaking of which, Renault is facing declining sales for the Dacia Logan as the global economy gets crappier and people in places like Eastern Europe and Latin America have less money to spend on a new car. With all this in mind, Ghosn – once considered Nissan’s savior – may have to step down from the CEO position at Nissan as a bargain with irate shareholders so that he can keep his Renault job. And you thought things were bad for Chrysler.
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The problems at Renault are real enough, but right now Nissan is holding up in the US market better than any other manufacturer, Honda included (though that may chance once the new Fit comes on line). So the story is not as black-and-white as some are presenting it here.