Nissan Sales Forecast Cut Again as China Slumps, but Profit Target Holds

Nissan sales forecast for the year to March 2027 has been cut for the second time in three months, and China is the reason. In first-half results published on Wednesday, 11 November 2026, Nissan said it now expects to sell between 2.97 million and 3 million vehicles worldwide, down from the 3.15 million it guided to in August.

The headline profit number did not move. Nissan kept its full-year operating profit outlook at ¥200 billion, even though second-quarter operating profit fell to just ¥2.1 billion. That gap between a weak quarter and an unchanged annual target is the part owners, investors and rival carmakers will be watching.

What did Nissan announce on 11 November?

Nissan reported results for the six months to 30 September. Global sales were 1.41 million units and net revenue rose by ¥493.3 billion to ¥6.072 trillion. Operating profit improved by ¥107.7 billion year on year to ¥80 billion, and the net loss narrowed to ¥39.7 billion from ¥221.9 billion a year earlier.

The company said its Re:Nissan restructuring plan delivered ¥110 billion of additional cost savings in the half. Chief executive Ivan Espinosa told CNBC the plan, which shrinks the factory footprint and cuts the workforce by 15%, has saved ¥365 billion in about 18 months.

Why did Nissan cut its sales forecast again?

Nissan’s own wording is blunt: in China, “weaker demand, a faster-than-anticipated shift to NEVs and intensifying competition are putting greater pressure on sales than initially anticipated.” NEV is the Chinese term for battery-electric and plug-in hybrid cars.

Espinosa went further in comments reported by The Guardian, saying the shift to new energy vehicles “is happening faster than expected” and that the market is “very, very harsh”. The paper reported that Nissan’s China sales were down 32% over the first nine months of the year, with pressure building from July through October.

The wider market explains why. China’s passenger car association reported that domestic retail sales fell 27% in October, as we covered in our report on China car sales in October 2026. Nissan’s China line-up still leans on petrol models such as the Sylphy family, so it is cutting petrol production and dealer stock there while it pushes its electrified N-series cars, including the Nissan NX7 plug-in hybrid SUV that Nissan has lined up for China pre-sales.

This is not only a Nissan problem. CNBC noted that Volvo Cars swung to an operating loss in October, citing China and the US, and that its chief executive said global cars developed in Europe no longer work in China.

Do Nissan’s numbers add up for the second half?

Holding the profit target while selling fewer cars puts a lot of weight on the next six months. We worked through Nissan’s published figures to see what the outlook implies. These are CarBike Insight calculations from the company’s tables, not Nissan guidance unless stated.

Two details stand out. First, Q1 alone produced about ¥77.9 billion of the ¥80 billion, a margin of roughly 2.6% on about ¥2.96 trillion of revenue. Q2 was close to break-even. Nissan blamed the drop on the absence of last year’s benefit from lower US emissions-related expenses. CNBC said analysts surveyed by FactSet had expected ¥54.9 billion for the quarter.

Second, the sales outlook has now fallen from 3.3 million, the figure CNBC says Nissan held before August, to as low as 2.97 million. That is a cut of 300,000 to 330,000 vehicles, or 9% to 10%, inside one financial year.

Nissan says higher volumes, new models and a richer mix should carry the second half, more than offsetting currency, raw material costs and the loss of a one-time tariff benefit booked in the first half. At the company’s stated average rate of ¥159 to the dollar, the ¥120 billion second-half target is roughly $755 million (our conversion).

Nissan Sales Forecast What does this mean for Nissan buyers outside China?

For most readers, the practical effect is in the product plan rather than the share price. Nissan revised its outlook up for the US and Japan. In the US, US-built models such as the Rogue, Frontier and Pathfinder drove growth, and a Rogue Hybrid arrives in the second half.

In Japan, the new Elgrand and Kicks are selling well, with new Skyline and Patrol models due to be unveiled. Mexico gets the Frontier Pro plug-in hybrid. Europe gets a new EV called the Pixo, with a Juke EV to be unveiled later.

Europe is also where Nissan’s policy position looks awkward. The Guardian reported that Nissan has lobbied to weaken the UK’s zero-emission vehicle mandate even as its China business suffers from moving too slowly to EVs. We set out what a lower UK target would change in our explainer on the UK EV target and ZEV mandate. Espinosa also said he hopes cars built in Sunderland and Japan will count under the EU’s proposed “Made in Europe” rules, which as drafted would exclude them from incentives, according to The Guardian.

Which China-developed Nissans are going global?

Espinosa told CNBC that Nissan will expand exports of China-developed vehicles from two models to five, aimed at 12 regional market clusters in the “very near term”. He said Nissan can fight Chinese rivals with “exactly the same elements that they have: speed, cost, and good technology.”

Nissan China’s September statement names the first two: the N7 electric sedan, bound for Latin America and Southeast Asia, and the Frontier Pro pickup, sold in Latin America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. It said the NX8 and other models would follow. Nissan has not said publicly which three models make up the expanded list of five.

Confirmed vs not confirmed (as of 11 November 2026)

CarBike Insight Analysis

Nissan’s half-year looks better than it did a year ago, and the cost cuts are real. The problem is shape, not direction. Nearly all of the first-half profit came in one quarter, and the full-year target now asks the second half to earn half as much again while the global volume forecast keeps shrinking.

Our view: the second forecast cut is less about one bad market than about timing. Nissan is selling more where EV adoption has slowed, in the US and Japan, and losing ground where it has sped up, in China. Exporting cheaper China-developed cars is a sensible answer, and the N7 and Frontier Pro already show how it works. The test comes in February, when the new business plan has to explain how Nissan earns money from those cars outside China without leaning on a single strong quarter.

The full tables and the outlook wording are in Nissan’s first-half fiscal 2026 results release.

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