Nissan Announces Best Ever March Sales in Europe

Nissan has announced that its European deliveries during the month of March were exceptionally good, the best ones for the month in fact. Sales reached 80,085 securing a year-high 4.0% of the market, Nissan’s best ever for March in Europe. For the 2010 Financial Year that ended March 31st, the company managed 607,000 deliveries – an increase of nearly 100,000 units against 2009.

Key to this sales increase was the Sunderland-built Qashqai crossover with nearly 250,000 sold in Financial Year 2010, representing a 19 percent increase on 2009. The smallest Juke, also produced in the UK, underlines Nissan’s dominance in the crossover segment with sales already reaching above 51,000 units since its launch last September. With a little help from the Murano, Nissan now accounts for more than a quarter of all sales within the European crossover segment.

Key countries included Russia, where sales jumped a massive 85 percent YoY to 102,000 units, establishing Russia as Nissan’s biggest European market.

“The 2010 financial year has been incredibly successful for Nissan in Europe. Qashqai continues to be the stand-out performer, but the huge gains we have made this year are attributable to the breadth, and freshness of our entire model range,” explains Bernard Loire, Vice President Sales Operations, Europe. “We have worked extremely hard to out-pace our competitors and establish Nissan as the number one Japanese brand in key markets including the UK, Russia and Spain, and we also achieved record market share in Italy."

“First and foremost this has been driven by a focus on bringing exciting and innovative products to the market, but also through the dedication of our dealer network, sales teams and the flexibility and professionalism of our logistics and manufacturing workforce,” Loire added.