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Infiniti contests premium market
G37 Coupe: Bloomberg/Mark EliasNissan Motor Indonesia, a subsidiary of Nissan Motor Co
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G37 Coupe: Bloomberg/Mark Elias
Nissan Motor Indonesia, a subsidiary of Nissan Motor Co. Ltd., will join the country’s premium car market with three Infiniti models scheduled for release in February.
Nissan will partner with local automobile retailer Indomobil to open an outlet in South Jakarta to sell the Infiniti FX50 SUV, M sedan and G37 coupe .
Takayuki Kimura, president director of Nissan Motor Indonesia, said recently that the company chose the three models for the Indonesian market to offer “the best variations at the best prices”.
Kimura said that the chosen models all have engines larger than 3 liters and would take advantage of the Indonesia-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement, which provides lower import duties for vehicles with large engines.
Lower tariffs are also why Nissan will begin selling Infinitis in 2011, when import duties will be lowered to 4 percent.
Kimura said the company had set a moderate sales target for its first year.
“If we can sell 500 cars in half a year, that would be a very good achievement,” he said.
The Indonesian Automotive Industry Association (Gaikindo) has estimated that sales of premium cars will reach between 4,300 and 4,500 cars this year.
Unit sales in the overall premium car segment — which currently includes BMW, Lexus, Audi, Jaguar and Volvo — grew from 3,598 in 2008 to 4,190 last year.
A target of 500, if achieved, will leave Nissan with around 11 percent of total market share.
Mercedes-Benz Indonesia, the local unit of the German carmaker, said earlier this year it had tightened its grip on the premium car segment after booking a 19 percent sales increase and increasing market share to 68.8 percent in the premium segment.
Nissan’s Creative Office chief of design Shiro Nakamura claimed that the Infiniti would be “very distinctive and very individual” when compared to European brands.
“We are targeting self-confident customers who believe in their own judgment rather than the opinions of other people,” Nakamura said.
Nakamura said that the Lexus offered by Toyota entered the Indonesian market in 2007 and that their main Asian competitor was “a step ahead” of Nissan.
However, he said, Nissan would put forward their unique design character, that is, strong Japanese traditions and values.
According to Nakamura, when Infiniti was conceived more than two decades ago, it was imbued with a sporty character, luxury and power.
“The front and rear grills are designed with double-arching frames,” he said, adding that the frame was intended as a signature style element, such as other carmakers that use grills as their primary brand identifiers, such as Jeep with its seven-bar grill or BMW with a split kidney.
“We are putting more emphasis on the front grill. We will keep it consistent with the design and will only make slow evolutionary changes in its design,” Nakamura said.
Nissan seems quite ambitious in the Indonesian car sales market. The company had planned to spend US$20 million to double its production in the country as economic growth has spurred demand.
The investment will allow Nissan to increase output to 100,000 vehicles a year by 2013 by adding a new assembly line at its plant in Purwakarta, West Java.
With 21,440 vehicles sold last year, Nissan had a 4.4 percent of overall market share.
This year, Nissan targets a combined sales of 35,000 vehicles, comprised of the 10 models currently marketed in Indonesia: the X-Trail, Livina, Frontier, Serena and the Teana series.
