Dongfeng Nissan sales exec joins Dongfeng Honda

Chen Binbo, former sales executive of Dongfeng Nissan Passenger Vehicle Company, has been engaged as the executive vice general manager for Dongfeng Honda Automobile Co. Ltd. recently. He is good at the sales business and network construction.

Dongfeng Nissan and Dongfeng Honda are the joint ventures that Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd., one of China's top carmakers, founded with two Japanese peers, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. (Nasdaq: NSANY | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) and Honda Motor Co., Ltd., respectively.

As a matter of fact, the newly-appointed executive faces such a serious sales situation, because the CR-V, Dongfeng Honda's pillar car model, is rivaled by the counterparts of Toyota Motor, Volkswagen, Audi, and even Hyundai.

Mr. Chen aired his foresighted opinion on the marketing layout as early as the establishment of Dongfeng Nissan in 2003. He replaces the Japanese shareholder's requirements for building sizable 4S stores with the distribution network expansion in second- and third-tier cities, on the basis of the actual situation in China.

This decision laid a solid foundation for the JV's entry into the Chinese mainstream automobile sector. In 2008, the global financial turmoil resulted in the auto market downturn, but Dongfeng Nissan still became the sole carmaker that hit its annual sales goal, amongst China's Big Ten passenger car companies.

The second- and third-tier markets contributed about 50% to its total sales volume of 517,000 vehicles. In addition, the atuomaker benefited a lot from a series of preferential policies, such as the halving of taxes on buying the 1.6L-minus cars and the subsidized rural promotion of vehicles.

The normal personnel adjustment causes no influence on Dongfeng Nissan's sales plan and operation, said people with the direct knowledge of the matter, adding that its sales target will not be adjusted.

Although it cannot catch up with Dongfeng Nissan in terms of the current production capacity, Dongfeng Honda keeps a fast and stable growth, and it annual sales volume has reached over 200,000 complete cars. The company aggregately sold 210,600 vehicles in 2009, with a 28.2% growth year on year, and the sales volume was far more than its earlier target, 185,000 units.

Dongfeng Honda maintained its leading position in the domestic SUV market, by virtue of total sales volume of 105,223 units of the CR-V. Meanwhile, up to 93,174 units of the CIVIC were sold, and this product still ranked the No. 1 amongst all of the country's 1.8L car models.

Presently, the company has been confronted with the production capacity shortage, so it is urgent for it to create the second plant.