Nissan Motor Co, Japan's third-largest automaker, expects global sales to rise 8 percent this business year, as it rolls out new models and starts making a midsize car in China, the world's fastest-growing auto market.
Nissan will start producing the Sunny sedan in June at its US$1 billion venture with Dongfeng Motor Corp (
PHOTO: AFP
Nissan is joining rivals General Motors Corp, Volkswagen and Honda Motor Co in looking to the world's most-populous nation for growth. The three automakers are unveiling at least a model each every year to tap a market that expanded by more than half last year.
Global sales of cars, buses and trucks probably rose by about 7 percent in the year ended March 31, 2002, to 2.8 million, Nissan has said. To boost growth, the company will roll out 10 new models worldwide this year, following a record 12 last year, Nakamura said.
Nissan's China business, which Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn has said will contribute up to 10 percent of group profits by 2005, plans to increase its capacity to 900,000 units by 2010, Nakamura said.
Nissan is aiming for annual sales of 550,000 vehicles in China by 2006. Of these, 330,000 will be Dongfeng-brand trucks and buses and 220,000 will be Nissan-brand cars and light commercial vehicles, including those made by Zhengzhou Nissan.
Last week Nissan Motor announced it will launch its first full-size sport-utility vehicle, the Pathfinder Armada, in the US this autumn. It was unveiled Thursday at the New York International Auto Show.
Nissan, which has decided to launch its full-size pickup truck Titan Crew Cab in the United States market by the end of the year, will become the second Japanese auto maker after Toyota Motor Corp to move into the two market strongholds held by General Motors Corp and Ford Motor Co.
GM and Ford together hold more than a 90 percent share of the SUV market in the US.
Also, GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler AG together hold more than a 90 percent share of the US pickup truck market.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day