Nissan-Renault Ghosn For Third Place?

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

No sooner had TTAC posted its list of Top Ten Automakers (by volume), than Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn weighed in on his firms’ chances of moving on up. He tells Reuters:

Very likely this year, we should be in the top three

Volkswagen is currently in third place, with 6,290,000 units built in 2009. Nissan was in eigth place last year with 2,744,562 units (down 19 percent), while Renault came in tenth with 2,309,188 units (down 4.5 percent). Combined, the two firms accounted for 5,053,750 units, or about 1.2 billion units fewer than VW’s third-place showing (and only a few hundred thousand better than Ford, in fourth place).

With VW enjoying strong growth in China, and less dependent on volatile mature markets than Renault-Nissan, that will be a tough goal to deliver on. But thanks to a new partnership with AvtoVAZ, Ghosn thinks Nissan-Renault will hit 7m units this year. Even if it does though, VAZ’s financial woes and embroilment with the Russian state may cause more headaches than its incremental, low-volume Russian-market sales are worth. As history teaches, there’s more to the global auto game than pure volume.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Ott Ott on Jun 02, 2010

    You know, add a small moustache under the nose, and in that pose he'd look a lot like Hitler.

  • Cmoibenlepro Cmoibenlepro on Jun 02, 2010

    Ladas are produced and sold in high quantities (1 million IIRC), but they don't earn hardly any profits. These are not volume you may want to own. Though Russian market could offer opportunities in longer term. Also Nissan-Renault owns only 25% of AutoVAS, could they include Lada sales as their own?

  • Marcelo de Vasconcellos Marcelo de Vasconcellos on Jun 02, 2010

    They can't seem to get any traction down here either. Renault's market share is under 5% again and Nissan has never broken the 1% barrier. And for now VW swwms to be holding its own against Fiat's new product onslaught. In other words, believe it when I see it.

  • Mythicalprogrammer Mythicalprogrammer on Jun 02, 2010

    They're still in Russia?! Russia's birthrate is dwindling! Putin called a state of emergency on it too. He freaking force Nissan to invest even more money cause AutoVaz was in a bad state, "Pay more or get out of Russia!" Get out of there sheesh. It's not worth dealing with the KGB mobster. Concentrate on China.

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