Nissan Philippines Inc. is looking forward to increased cooperation with Mitsubishi Motor Philippines Corp. for better market visibility and back-end support.
Nissan regional senior vice president for Asia and Oceana Yutaka Sanada said Mitsubishi's support as an ally and a partner in the Philippines was critical in expanding the company’s presence across the country.
“We continue to study opportunities in terms of alliance with Mitsubishi because of its significant footprint in the Philippines. It is within this light that we also want to expand our alliance for all our fleets. We already extended supply chain, logistics domain, and some manufacturing domain,” he said.
Sanada witnessed the unveiling of the NIssan 370Z Nismo and Nissan Juke Nismo during the Philippine International Motoring Show held at the World Trade Center.
Both companies were observing the so-called benchmarking of good practice that will help optimize cost reduction for both companies.
“Because of this we are now having the confidence to do more. We are extending our activities for more wider value chain scope and in all the fields we are looking for,” Sanada said.
One particular cooperation between the two automotive firms is the recent creation of Nissan Training Center 3 and the groundbreaking of a warehouse in which Mitsubishi was cited as instrumental to the endeavors.
Nissan has been regaining its popularity as the brand of choice among Filipinos as sales from April to September, the first half of its fiscal year, rose 55 percent year-on-year amid the decline in the sales of the automotive industry.
Nissan officials conceded that the additional excise tax imposed on automobiles under the package 1 of the TRAIN law affected the overall sales of the industry, except Nissan.
Company sales could have been better if not for the Train Law, Nissan noted.
“We cannot comment on behalf of other companies. Our focus is on Nissan and how to continue the growth. TRAIN law has so far impacted our company positively. We’re excited how things will turn out as we introduce more models,” Sanada said without citing growth projections for the year and in 2019.