With approval from its parent company, Nissan Motor Company Limited, Nissan South Africa (Nissan SA) is set to double the capacity of its Rosslyn-based plant to 100,000 units a year.
The automobile company is ramping up its production market to meet consumer’s need globally by using the Rosslyn plant in South Africa as a key manufacturing player especially in light of the growth opportunities in Africa.
The increase which is set to begin at the later part of 2014 will feature a rise in the company production of new pick-up generation from Nissan. The production capacity has already increased at the Rosslyn plant to 50,000 from its production capacity of 25,000 in 2008.
According to Nissan SA Managing Director, Mike Whitfield, the introduction of the new investment will result in a new production platform at the plant with a total investment cost of more than 1billion rand ($121 million).
He stated that the commencement of Nissan SA production will create approximately 800 new jobs directly and about 4 000 more through the supply chain.
The investment announcement coincided with a visit to South Africa by Toshiyuki Shiga, the chief operating officer of the Nissan Motor Company of Japan.
During his visit to the South Africa Company, Shiga said, the proposed increase in the Nissan SA production capacity is part of the company’s ambitious strategy to push the company’s growth plan to 8 percent by 2016 from 5.8 percent in 2010 and its corporate operating profit to 8 percent from 6.1 percent in the same period.
Shiga also disclosed that Nissan was aiming to grow its global sales by 10.4 percent to 5.35 million units in its financial year to March next year and its global market share to 6.7 percent from 6.4 percent, despite overall industry growth of 5.3 percent to 79.7 million units expected in this period.
Meanwhile, Whitfield noted that Africa is regarded as a huge opportunity by vehicle manufacturers not only because it had about 16 percent of the world’s population, but for its credibility in accounting for more than 1 percent of total industry new vehicle volumes.
“Nissan South Africa has demonstrated its competence in key deliverables — improvements in quality, cost and productivity — and we are confident in its capability to meet anticipated demand, and increased production is expected to during financial year 2014,” stated Whitfield.
He said that growth in vehicle sales is expected to come out of North Africa and South Africa.
“Global markets are pivotal to Nissan’s growth strategy and Africa, in particular, is a strategic region,” Shiga collaborated.
Nissan is the sixth largest automobile producing company in the world. Apart from Nissan, Toyota, Ford and Isuzu all produce automobile products in South Africa.
