|
“Hold on to your hat, Tundra,” Nissan seems to be telling Toyota. “There’s a new Titan in town.”
That town would be Chicago, site of February’s Chicago Auto Show, and the “new Titan” referred to is a facelifted version of Nissan’s full-sized pickup truck. (Pictured is the 2006 model.) Toyota has recently introduced a new version of its flagship full-sized truck, the Tundra, so Nissan needed to reshape some sheet metal to ensure that its full-sized truck garners some attention in the marketplace as well. Since the cost structure for passenger cars is different than those of pickups and SUVs, manufacturers prefer selling pickups and SUVs because the profit margins are greater for those vehicles, even if you take into account the rising tide of sales incentives being applied to trucks, for instance. Every truck sold means more dollars into the corporate coffers of Nissan or Toyota (or even Ford or GM or the other truck makers). Toyota expects to launch a full-scale advertising blitz for the Tundra right around the same time as Nissan premieres the reskinned Titan at the Chicago Auto Show, and is hoping to be on track to sell 200,000 Tundras this year. By contrast, last year Toyota only sold 126,529 Tundras, and Nissan only 86,945 Titans. Clearly, Nissan would like to boost the Titan’s numbers overall, and perhaps poach some potential Tundra buyers over to its full-sized pickup. Since the pickup market remains relatively flat, experts think that any sales the Tundra is likely to pick up (pardon the pun) will be at the expense of pickups produced by GM, Ford, and Dodge. In addition, the Titan may have trouble augmenting its share of the market because Nissan buyers have not shown the brand loyalty typically displayed by repeat buyers in the domestic truck camp—where, in some cases, a family identifies with a particular brand and sticks with it, passing down that preference to the next generation. Toyota thinks that Nissans customers are approachable, and is targeting them in the West Coast and the Southeast. Coincidentally, that’s where Toyota also has strong dealer networks (as opposed to the domestic brands, which have greater penetration in rural areas of the country). Nissan expects to rise to the challenge, however, and foresees bolstering its sales even while being under pressure from the other manufacturers in that segment. Our take? We personally don't foresee any major shifts among truck buyers. Unlike cars, there has been little discrepencies in quality among trucks which favors the Detroit Three. We feel Toyota and Nissan should consider their marketing strategies and push their trucks towards construction and, interestingly, fleet sales. The latter will not only boost their numbers (a strategy pursued by the domestic manufacturers for years) but may impact potential buyers.
|
|