August 3, 2026 - Nissan Making Progress with US Sales

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for August 3, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. 

Nissan has had a challenging few years with some massive losses and declining sales of aging and uncompetitive products. The situation got so bad that the company tried to get Honda to buy it in 2024, but that deal fell through. Subsequently, the CEO was replaced by Head of Product Planning Ivan Espinosa. 

Following some significant restructuring, the company finally seems to be making some headway in the first half of 2026. In the company's first fiscal quarter of 2026, Espinosa reported that Nissan had returned to profitability with a modest 3.8 billion yen compared to a loss of 116 billion the prior year. However, despite the gains, Nissan is no longer targetting 4.7% growth in global vehicle sales for this year. Instead, it has reduced its forecast from 3.3 million units for the fiscal year to 3.15 million. While sales in North America and Europe are expected to improve, China remains a huge problem. Overall sales have declined for the market in China this year, and non-Chinese brands are particularly hard hit. Nissan hopes to resume growth in China from 2027 onward thanks to the launch of new NEV models. 

Meanwhile, Nissan is seeing growth in the US market with second-quarter sales up 9.6%, thanks to the Sentra and its lineup of SUVs and the Frontier pickup. The Rogue in particular jumped 38.6% in the quarter as Nissan prepares to launch the next generation. With nearly 66,000 sales, Rogue alone outsold all of Nissan's cars in the quarter and remains the brand's top-selling nameplate. The new Rogue will be the first model sold in North America with Nissan's e-Power series hybrid system, and it should finally make it fully competitive with the segment leaders from Honda and Toyota.  The Rogue e-Power hybrid should be going on sale in fall 2026. 

Thanks for listening.