Nissan sets up Rp 100b firm to push up car sales

JAKARTA. PT Nissan Motor Indonesia (NMI) is aiming to sell 200,000 cars by the end of 2016, supported by financing subsidiary firm PT Nissan Financial Services Indonesia.

NMI, a subsidiary of Japan’s second-largest automotive company Nissan Motor Co. Ltd., spent

Rp 100 billion (US$8.6 million) on the establishment of Nissan Financial, which it launched on Tuesday to provide loans for consumers buying NMI cars.

“Finance is one of many critical factors determining customers’ decision to buy cars. Nissan wants to have a financial company that supports car sales,” Nissan Financial president director Katsumi Ishii told a press conference, adding that Indonesia was one of the fastest-growing emerging markets for car products in Asia.

He, however, refused to disclose the new company’s contribution target to Nissan car sales in total.

Nissan Financial vice president Yoshiya Horigome said that Nissan car sales in Indonesia had increased by 22 percent per annum in the last six years, thanks to “the ease in which people can buy cars”.

He said the financing firm would help NMI meet the former’s sales target of 70,000 units between April this year and March next year.

The use of the April-to-March fiscal year is common among Japanese firms and the Japanese government.

 “Currently, we have reached 50 percent of our annual sales target,” Horigome said.

 “For the remaining 50 percent, we believe that some 25 percent will use financial services to pay for their cars, while the remaining 25 percent will pay by cash,” he said, underlining an opportunity for Nissan Financial to grab a slice of the automotive financing market.

He said that NMI had not set a sales target for the April 2014 to March 2015 period just yet.

According to PT Astra International data, the country’s largest automotive distributor, Nissan sold 67,143 cars last year, a nearly 20 percent increase from 56,137 a year before.

Nissan had sold 48,242 cars as of September this year, according to the data.

Nissan sells its cars through PT Indomobil Sukses International, the country’s second-largest automotive distributor.

In forging the new financing company, Nissan has also engaged Indomobil’s automotive financing unit, PT Indomobil Multi Jasa, with 75 percent ownership by the former and 25 percent by the latter.

The Japanese firm has previously set up seven similar financing firms in Japan, China, United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia and Thailand

According to Ishii, Nissan Financial is discussing with several foreign banks to find possibilities of obtaining more capital for the company to open branch offices outside Jakarta.

 “Currently, we will operate in NMI’s headquarters in Jakarta. However, we would like to expand to other big cities in Indonesia in the years to come,” he said.  (The Jakarta Post)