One new, interesting product that just hit the market is the Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet. That's because I am pretty confident that no one else is building a pseudo luxury two-door convertible sport-utility vehicle.
If you were investigating sales data from this past month, you would have noticed that the Murano sales were down over 30 percent year-over-year. Essentially, you may have found yourself asking "But what about the CrossCabriolet? I guess it didn't boost sales. Is it a flop?"
Well, according to David Reuter, Nissan's vice president of corporate communications, the CC was merely in its first few days of production when the quake struck. Obviously this impacted the brand's supply chain surrounding this product.
According to Reuter, only 40-50 units are in customer hands.
Essentially, this is not a good start for this already super niche product.
Nissan does not break out Murano CrossCabriolet sales from overall Murano sales, so its May sales release does not provide any formal data.
"However, I can tell you we started to deliver our first few units in May and there were roughly 40-50 placed in customer hands," wrote David P. Reuter, Nissan Americas vice president of corporate communications, in response to an e-mailed query from Inside Line. "What's more important is for me to note that this vehicle's production was significantly impacted by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The vehicle was literally in its first few days of production start-up when disaster hit, so our inventory — in transit and on the ground in the U.S. — was virtually non-existent.
"Given this, it would be incorrect to assume that there is any sort of sales problem with the Murano CrossCabriolet. It's a supply challenge and one which we'll have to work through in the coming months until we get a good number of units into dealer hands."
[Source: Inside Line]
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