Nissan Rounds Off 2009 With Strong Fleet Sales Performance

MAPLE CROSS, UNITED KINGDOM – January 12, 2010: Nissan has completed a successful 2009 by growing its share of the fleet sales market from 3.5 to 4.0%, when the overall market fell by 20.5% (227,707 cars).

In 2009 Nissan sold 35,236 cars to UK fleets, making it the 7th most popular brand with company car drivers, up one place from 2008 and ahead of key rivals such as Honda, Citroen and Toyota.

The star performer was the Sunderland built Qashqai which saw a 161% rise in fleet sales from 9,873 to 15,925, while the Qashqai+2 rose 650% to 2,296.

Although slightly down on the 38,399 fleet sales Nissan achieved in 2008, its market share grew as some manufacturers reported a year on year fall in fleet sales of over 35%. Only Ford achieved a better year on year fleet sales performance than Nissan.

More importantly this performance was achieved despite Nissan moving away from supplying volumes of cars to the short term rental and bodyshop sectors.

“We have steadily grown our fleet market share, and by pulling out of short term, low return business this has been achieved profitably,” explained James Douglas, Nissan’s fleet sales director.

“Qashqai has been a big success with fleets and user choosers alike and with the Juke being introduced later this year, we believe corporate sales will continue to grow,” he added