Nissan Motor Co Ltd
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Nissan Motor Co Ltd
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[Interpreted] We would like to begin Nissan's first quarter financial results for fiscal year 2022. We are most thankful for your participation. In order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infection, we are using the online Internet system for this meeting, which is being live streamed.
First of all, let me introduce to you the participants from the Nissan side. Our Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Ashwani Gupta; our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Stephen Ma. First of all, Mr. Gupta will deliver his presentation on first quarter financial results.
Thank you, Hamaguchi-san. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Nissan's first quarter results for the 3-month period ending June 30, 2022.
Let me begin with thanking our employees and partners supporting us through yet another resilient quarter. Indeed, this quarter was even more demanding with challenging macro environment and continuing global uncertainties, including the fallout from geopolitical issue. While the pandemic understandably remains a priority challenge with persisting semiconductor shortage, raw material price hikes and knock-on impact from lockdowns in China, supply chain remains constrained, affecting production and leading to delay in deliveries.
We also see adverse effects on total industrial vehicle market in key markets, especially in passenger vehicle segments. At the same time, we experienced tailwinds with favorable foreign exchange rates. Our approach and discipline in implementing Nissan NEXT transformation plan helped us keep the momentum.
My sincere thanks to our customers for their patronage, patience and understanding. We apologize for the inconvenience caused by the delays of certain models in some markets. Nissan is fully committed to delivering your desired models as soon as possible.
Now I will take you through our latest quarterly results. Turning to our key metrics for the latest quarter. The retail sales in the first quarter decreased by 22% year-on-year. This is primarily due to the difference in inventory availability. In FY '21, we made good use of our inventory for sales. However, our inventory was already at minimum level last quarter, which limited the opportunity to meet growing sales demand, utilizing existing inventory levels.
Due to the challenges mentioned earlier, our production volume were flat year-on-year at 812,000 units. Nissan teams around the world worked hard to deliver every unit that we produced, resulting in our retail sales being at the same level of production at 819,000 units.
Even in this challenging backdrop, we are pleased by the growing customer acceptance of our newly introduced models in the markets that we believe are the key for our long-term performance. Our exciting core model lineup is delivering value to customers and supporting growth in important vehicle segments.
Our segment share for the Note and Aura in Japan reached 17% in the first quarter, while the net revenue per unit before any currency effects increased by 4%. We are also proud of the Note and the Aura continuing to be the #1 selling electrified vehicles in the first half of calendar year 2022. In China, the segment share of Sylphy also reached 17% in the 3-month period with a 22% jump in net revenue per unit.
We also saw an improving performance in the United States for the all-new Frontier with its segment share reaching 11% and net revenue per unit rising 19%. And the all-new Qashqai now accounts for 5% of the European crossover segment with revenue per unit up 26%. We have also won further awards for new products with the zero-emission Nissan Ariya named Car of the Year by Auto Express and winning the iF Design Award and the 2022 Red Dot Design Award.
In the important mini-vehicle segment, we have received 23,000 customer orders for the all-new Sakura electric vehicle, more than half of whom are new customers for Nissan. We are confident that the Sakura will accelerate the democratization of electric vehicles in Japan. Further, the recently announced all-new X-Trail for the Japan market has become a dedicated e-POWER model available with e-4ORCE. It has received positive reviews and our dealers are feeling a very strong response from customers. Winning customer acceptance for new models to our wider transformation plan and the fact that more and more new customers are choosing Nissan vehicles endorses our commitment to innovation that excites.
Now let us look at the Q1 financial performance. This is the income statement for the 3 months ending June 30, 2022 on an equity basis, which excludes contribution from our China JV operations. The net revenue increased by JPY 129.1 billion from the previous year to JPY 2.14 trillion despite the decline in sales volume. The increase was driven by the improvement in the net revenue per unit as well as the weakening of yen.
Operating profit decreased by JPY 10.8 billion from the previous year to JPY 64.9 billion, representing an operating margin of 3%. Net income decreased to JPY 47.1 billion. This was primarily because last year's net income included an extraordinary gain on the sale of Daimler shares, which amounted to JPY 76.1 billion.
Turning now to the operating profit, variance analysis for the first quarter. This slide shows the variance factors from the first quarter of last year to this year. Foreign exchange had a positive impact of JPY 25.7 billion, primarily due to the strong U.S. dollar. The increase in raw material prices had a negative impact of JPY 50.7 billion, primarily driven by price hikes in materials such as steel, aluminum and plastics.
Sales performance had a positive impact of JPY 53.5 billion. Continued improvement in quality of sales and pricing of our products based on customer value as well as the continued tight supply-demand balance offsets the negative impact of raw material prices, even including the negative impact from the decline in sales volume.
Monozukuri performance had a negative impact of JPY 15.8 billion, primarily driven by increase in manufacturing fixed costs such as additional investments in our products and facilities and inflation in logistic cost. Other items deteriorated by JPY 23.5 billion from the previous year, mainly due to onetime gains in the prior year from the release in sales finance provisions and increased used vehicle prices.
Without the impact of the last year's onetime gains, the operating profit improved year-on-year by JPY 24.2 billion. It is encouraging that despite heavy headwinds, operating profit for the quarter was JPY 64.9 billion, setting a steady step towards delivering our fiscal year outlook of JPY 250 billion.
This slide shows our key financial performance indicators on both the China JV proportionate basis and equity basis for the first quarter period. On an equity basis, which excludes contribution from our China joint venture operations, our net revenue rose to JPY 2.14 trillion from JPY 2.01 trillion in the same period of 2021. On the same basis, operating profit for the period was JPY 64.9 billion with an operating margin of 3%.
Net income was JPY 47.1 billion. Free cash flow for the automotive business was negative JPY 304.6 billion due to the working capital usage due to low production resulting from supply chain disruptions. While net income and free cash flow declined year-on-year, if we exclude the impact from the sale of Daimler shares, our performance was better than the previous year despite lower sales volume. Net cash for the automotive business was JPY 826.4 billion.
On a proportionate basis, which includes our China operations, our net revenue rose to JPY 2.48 trillion from JPY 2.32 trillion last year. Operating profit under this measure reached JPY 98.8 billion, representing an operating margin of 4%. Net cash for the automotive business reached JPY 1.34 trillion on this basis. Overall, Nissan continues to maintain strong levels of liquidity.
Our cash and cash equivalents for the automotive business was approximately JPY 1.39 trillion on an equity basis. We also maintained approximately JPY 2.1 trillion of unused committed credit lines during the period. As mentioned earlier, this quarter saw a mix of both headwinds and tailwinds. In these rapidly evolving and challenging conditions, the headwinds we face are myriad.
And given the pandemic lessons, other ongoing industry trends and the potential for more disruptions in the year ahead, one thing has become clear, we must invest in building great resilience. Hence, the measures we have undertaken not only address immediate concerns but will help us build a sustainable approach for the long term.
This quarter, Shanghai lockdown was on our top priority list. Our key immediate response was to address the logistics backlog in terms of shipments by using alternative ports rather than Shanghai. We have been able to cut delays for container deliveries by 96%, which is encouraging. Currently, all of our suppliers have restarted their operations and returned to 100% operational levels, and 100% of Nissan dealerships have reopened and showroom traffic is recovering, which should feed through into orders.
Coming to the semiconductor shortage. This has occupied our concern list for a longer period and exposed the need to look at the entire supply chain ecosystem. For the short term, we have taken steps to secure inventory levels with chip suppliers and allocated chips to priority products and markets. In the midterm, we are developing alternative semiconductors and also replacing custom-made semiconductors with general-purpose semiconductors. We will provide suppliers medium- to long-term production outlook to ensure they align and meet supply commitments.
The third challenge is the escalating raw material cost. We are focusing first on mitigating the impact by reducing the usage of precious metals. For example, by developing a new generation of catalysts that use fewer precious metals and also developing cobalt-free batteries. As we look at the long term, we are exploring direct sourcing options for raw materials, leveraging scale efficiencies. Furthermore, we are executing the physical and the financial hedging in order to stabilize purchasing prices.
While we rise up to the challenges, we continue to leverage opportunities. First, quality of sales. With Nissan NEXT transformation plan, we have been pursuing quality of sales in every market of ours, resulting in a strong and sustainable foundation. Stronger customer demand for our new products is contributing to higher revenue per unit.
Next is our focus on diligent operational efficiencies. We have become more agile and resilient to adapt to changing external environment. Adding to this is a tailwind from weaker yen to U.S. dollar, which is on top of our operational excellence. In conclusion, we are taking these headwinds as an opportunity to further improve the way we operate.
With strong business continuity plans and agile strategies, Nissan is striving to recover production as much as possible and keep costs under control. As always, we move forward with cautious optimism while challenging ourselves to maintain 4 million sales outlook for the fiscal year. We are strategically managing our operations to mitigate and manage risk from macro conditions and diligently managing our financial discipline while maximizing the opportunities. We remain optimistic to deliver our target JPY 250 billion operating profit for the full year and net income of JPY 150 billion.
Let me reiterate, the Nissan NEXT transformation has built a strong foundation to sustain our business. And with this qualitative progress, we are confident in our capability to be even more agile and resilient as we address a constantly changing external environment. Thank you for your attention.
[Interpreted] [Operator Instructions] Starting with Nihon Keizai Shimbun. [ Yumaya-san ], please. [ Yumaya-san ] of Nikkei, please.
[Interpreted] Nikkei, [ Yumaya ] speaking. Hello. Do you hear me?
Yes, we do. Go ahead.
[Interpreted] Yes. Excuse me, I have a couple of questions, starting with the operation or business operation, automotive business and sales finance. I have a separate question for each one. For automotive business, sales volume is 820,000 units, which was a drop, while 4 million units is the full year guidance that you are retaining. From when will the parts supply shortage will be resolved and your sales volume will come back when? 4 million units. Why did you retain this 4 million units as full year guidance? What's the reasoning behind it? And next is the sales finance. Today, while the sales are increasing and there, we had [ rigs ] of credit loss provision going forward with sales finance. As the demand increase, how does it impact from the demand? And what is your visibility of the sales finance? These are the 2 questions.
Thank you for this question. We are maintaining our 4 million retail sales forecast with the assumption that in quarter 1, we lost 15%. But this was mainly because of the lockdown in China and the global semiconductor crisis. And as we have seen, that lockdown in China has already recovered, and we see the improvement already starting from the quarter 2. That's why the rest of the 3 quarters, we believe that we should challenge the 4 million vehicle.
Now the second question is about the sales finance. We understand the challenges we have, especially after increase in the interest rates, especially in the United States. Now when we look at our business in the United States, we have roughly 5 opportunities. The first one is that all the products have got high momentum with the customer acceptance. The second is that customer-facing transaction prices are really valued for our -- all the products, which is resulting in higher margins and higher revenues.
The third one, our lean inventory is helping us in maximizing our sales efficiency. Fourth one is the strong dealer engagement. And because of this, we believe that we have further more opportunities in United States with the increase in the volume in the next 3 quarters, which should offset any increase, which is coming either from inflation or from the increase in the Federal interest rates in United States. Hope it answers your question. Thank you.
[Interpreted] Yes. Thank you, Ashwani-san. There's another question that I would like to ask you. This is for Mr. Ma, by the way. Shareholders return. For this fiscal term, what is the interim dividend policy? In May, you said that because of Shanghai lockdown, business circumstances are uncertain so it's undecided. But earlier, Gupta-san said that it has been resolved. The lockdown is resolved. So automotive free cash flow projection, what were the questions that -- what are the conditions to be satisfied to pay the dividend for the interim one?
Thank you [ Yumaya-san ] for the question. As we said, when we resumed dividend last year, we were looking at positive profit on operating profit and net income. We're looking at positive free cash flow. And we're looking at healthy net cash position. I think you can see from our result in Q1, profit is no problem. Net cash, also healthy.
Free cash flow is negative. But actually, compared to last year Q1, without Daimler effect, we actually improved. So the question now is the visibility of the volume in the next few quarters and especially the next quarter in Q2. As Ashwani just mentioned, the recovery of the volume should happen in the next few months. So we are right now watching very carefully about the recovery of the volume. And we think that it should improve in Q2. And we are now thinking about what to do in terms of interim dividend. It's not yet decided. We will monitor very closely the situation in the next couple of months. Ashwani, you want to add?
Yes. Thank you, Stephen. That's a great thing. I think what's very important is to understand that how our core business is recovering, especially Japan and United States. Japan in the quarter 1 has done extremely well by improving the market share but also by improving the net revenue per unit. And definitely, these kind of improvements, which we have seen in quarter 1 and because of the reversal of the working capital, we are going to challenge the next 3 quarters to be cumulative, to be positive.
That's the challenge, which we are looking at. That's why it's important for us to see the situation in the next few months that what happens in terms of minimizing the headwinds but maximizing the tailwinds. And this is one of the reasons that Nissan today, we are not reforecasting the annual outlook just because we have a tailwind of foreign exchange.
[Interpreted] Moving on to the next question, NHK. [ Taduno-san ], please, of NHK?
[Interpreted] This is [ Taduno ] of NHK. Do you hear me?
Yes, go ahead.
[Interpreted] Yes. In Q1, raw material price hike has an impact of JPY 50 billion, which is greater than the prior year. If I understand correctly, this is such a big impact. As a result of this headwind, you have to price it MSRP. You may have to price it in MSRP. But in Japan, are you doing something to revise the price upward? What's your policy about pricing in Japan? That's my question. And in addition to this, raw material price hike. Gupta-san, earlier, you said that you are trying to have a direct sourcing from the mines. With regards to this vision or policy, could you elaborate on this for a better understanding?
Thank you for this question. I would like to have a view on our operating profit variance chart, where we have shown the variance of our operating profit with respect to the previous year quarter. So if you please look at it, obviously, with respect to the last year quarter, raw material has been JPY 50.7 billion, and this is driven by mainly steel and then aluminum and then the plastic.
But what's very important, if you please look at the second bar, we had volume drop, which is equivalent to JPY 27.8 billion. But because of the sales performance and after sales performance, we were able to fully mitigate the raw material increase. Now what does it mean that Nissan is not increasing the price just for the sake of increasing the price? Nissan is managing the net revenue per unit, which is driven, number one, by value of the car, which is perceived by the customer to pay for it; and number two, by having optimized cost.
So more and more, we are increasing the value. More and more, we are optimizing the cost. More and more, net revenue, we are generating, and that's how we are trying to cover the raw material on the revenue side. So for us, pricing is the consequence of the customer choice and pricing is not the objective to absorb the raw material.
Regarding your second question, what is your policy on direct procurement. We already procure precious metals directly from some of the mines. And now we are in discussion of further having this kind of sourcing arrangement with -- directly with the raw material sourcings. And this is where we want not only the cost competitiveness, but we also want to control quality and the delivery of these raw materials.
[Interpreted] Moving on to the next one, Toyo Keizai Shimpo, [ Yokoyama-san ].
[Interpreted] [ Yokoyama ] of Toyo Keizai. Can you hear me?
Yes. Please go ahead.
[Interpreted] I also have 2 questions. First of all, on the production plan. In the case of Nissan, you don't disclose production plan. But Q1, 810,000 units were produced according to your announcement. Was that according to plan? And in the second half, I believe your plan will -- in your plan, you will be increasing production in the second half. And in order to produce as many units as possible, what are the initiatives you will be implementing? That's my first question.
Thank you. That's a great question. Actually, we disclosed the production plan, but we don't communicate in the financial announcements about the production plan. And this financial plan, we thought it's very important to share with everyone that we kept our production flat year-on-year, but our retail sales went down. So that's how we would like to -- as we are improving our communication with our suppliers on midterm and long-term forecasting, we really want with you, with analysts, to give more outlook on our production because there is so much of impact of production on the business performance.
Now as I said before, the quarter 1 was impacted by 2 reasons, the lockdown on -- in China. And second is the global semiconductor crisis. And it resulted us roughly 15% less than what we planned in quarter 1. So if I would say 15%, if we add on it 110,000 so we are very close to 1 million in quarter 1. That's why we are saying that even if situation is improving, we want to challenge the 4 million because we never know what kind of headwinds we may have in quarter 3, quarter 4.
But most important, in addition to the production volume challenge of 4 million, more important is the operating profit. In only 1 quarter, we have made JPY 64.9 billion, and if we do the 4 quarters, definitely, we are very confident of achieving our operating profit of JPY 250 billion. Having said that, we really want to see few more months at how we are minimizing our risk and maximizing our opportunity to come back and show that what will be our real potential for this financial year. Did that answer your question?
[Interpreted] There's another thing that I would like to ask you. Yes, this is related to production, supplier support. Earlier, you said the volume is declining. But with the cancellation of production, suppliers have a bigger fixed cost to bear. I did ask you a similar question last time. And Toyota, you -- they are postponing the revision of prices with suppliers. When there's a cancellation, Toyota is compensating for it. So what are you doing to support the suppliers? Is there anything you have in mind to support the suppliers?
Thank you very much. There are 2 things which we are doing with suppliers. Number one, we have really improved our communication about the production plan. Having said that, the global crisis, which we are seeing on supply chain, it's very important that we are agile but our suppliers are also agile. And both can be agile if you are communicating on almost daily basis. This is what we have tried to implement with our suppliers so that they can also plan their business. They plan their production in line with the reality, which is changing almost every second day.
The second is regarding the support to our suppliers, definitely, we encourage them to have their own business plan, and we work with them as a strategic partner. But for sure, when they face challenge, we are always there with them with the operational support, which we can do because we believe that strategic partnership and operational partnership, both are important for win-win and moving forward. So this is what we do with our suppliers. And we have proved it in the past. We are not able to share details with you today. But when suppliers are in challenge, we support them operationally.
[Interpreted] Moving on to next person, [ Shiraki-san ] of Reuters, please.
[Interpreted] This is [ Shiraki ] of Reuters. I also have 2 questions. First of all, semiconductor shortage impact. Second half, what's your prospect? You mentioned that as far as Shanghai lockdown is concerned, the problem has been relieved and resolution is visible, but regarding semiconductor shortage, do we no longer need to be concerned? Is there any risk of suspension of production still remaining or no concerns whatsoever? And I will continue on with my second question. At the moment, the number of positive cases is surging. At the production front, have there been clusters that has impacted your business activities because some companies have faced such problems? In the second quarter and in the quarters to follow, in order to keep up with your production plan, what are some of the new countermeasures that you have introduced like in shift design or shift structures?
Thank you for your question. So I think your first and second question, I would like to link with each other. The first is more about the semiconductor shortage. To start with the answer, I don't think that world is out of the semiconductor crisis, and I don't think that semiconductor crisis will be over tomorrow morning. Even after the Shanghai lockdown is over, we will continue to have semiconductor crisis, and we are not at the peak of our potential, which we have coming from the customers' demand.
So on the other side, whether it is improving, yes, it is improving because we are developing the alternative sources. We are going for mid- to long-term supply agreements, and that's why we believe it is improving. But I don't believe that we are at maximum potential, which we need. That's the first thing.
The second thing is though that Shanghai has gone through the tough circumstances, and our thoughts are with the people who were impacted because of that. Nissan still remains with the policy, which is people safety first. And we don't compromise that. So that's why we are also not at our peak of production because we are keeping the social distancing rules, all the protection, which we should have in our plants. Because we do believe that in offices, we can always have work from home, remote work. But when it comes to the production plants, this is at the Gamba. So that's why we have to take care of that. And that's why it's important that while having a business continuity, we must prioritize the people safety. That's what Nissan's safety policy is.
[Interpreted] Moving on to the next person, Wall Street Journal, Sean.
I got really one question that feeds off [ Shiraki-san's ] question. I'm wondering, Ashwani, if you could address -- and I asked this last time, if you can address the rising interest rates and rising vehicle costs on demand from consumers in the U.S. I think we're interested to look at the rest of the year as you're aiming for 4 million production and you're looking for your sales volume. With vehicle prices being what they are and interest rates rising, do you see any impact on demand from U.S. consumers? Are you seeing any sort of signs that maybe your presold inventory is going down? Where do you think demand is headed in the U.S. in relation to pricing?
Thank you, Sean, for this question. And only not about automotive market. I would like to give a very general answer, which we believe is happening and is going to happen. Because of 2 years continuous scarcity of the vehicles because of the pandemic, I do believe that there is an increase in the private mobility. There's an increase in the purchase intention of the customers when it comes to automotive.
Now on the other side, we have seen roughly 2 challenges in the United States. The first challenge is about increase in the interest rates. The second challenge is, of course, the inflation, which is increasing the normal commodity prices. So obviously, when these 2 things occur, they have a negative sentiment on the market demand. But on the other side, as I said, 2 years, the customers were waiting for the automotive thing. So which means that we do believe that in the coming period still, demand will be better than the supply, which means that it will be a cushion of affordability of the customer to have a good balance between the demand and supply.
Normally, when the world recession take place, it starts with automotive or at least automotive is the second one or the third one. But I think in this case, because the customer demand is so high, if the recession takes place, automotive will be one of the last to get hit. That's what I can tell you. Of course, I'm not an astrologer but I can tell you based on our experience, starting from Lehman shock in before.
[Interpreted] Moving on to the next question, Kamiyama-san of Asahi Newspaper Company.
[Interpreted] Kamiyama-san of Asahi Shimbun Newspaper Company. I hope you can hear me.
Please go ahead, yes.
[Interpreted] One question. For the automotive business, profit and loss results. Looking at Q1, the -- you've incurred losses. The sales per unit is rising. But with semiconductor shortage and raw material costs increasing, they had negative impact, I believe. Regarding business -- automotive business P&L in 2023, you are going to be achieving surplus. Is that still doable? What do you think is the biggest challenge of underperforming that target?
Yes. So maybe I'll take that question. Kamiyama-san, thank you for the question. So automotive profit is, of course, a big focus for us. Last couple of years, it's been negative. And as you saw in Q1, it's still negative. But it's a smaller loss than previous years. So you can see, despite the decreased volume, our losses are getting smaller, which tells you the result of our quality of sales, our fixed cost control, the financial discipline that Ashwani was referring to is all working in the right way.
I think we have a very good chance this year, as I mentioned previously, that we might be at breakeven or better. But now it just depends on the volume. As the Q2 to Q4, the volume is picking up, we will be watching very carefully and trying to make sure that the auto profit getting us closer breakeven or even positive territory. But at this time, I cannot tell you the full year yet, but we have a fairly good chance.
[Interpreted] We are running out of time, so we will take 2 more people to ask their question, 2 more people. Yomiuri Shimbun, [ Suzuki-san ], please. [ Suzuki-san ]?
[Interpreted] Yes. This is [ Suzuki ] from the Yomiuri Shimbun. I have 2 questions. One is the raw material price hike and logistics cost. In the first quarter, there's a big impact from these 2 factors. Is that -- the aluminum, plastic and steel prices are the main contributions. So what are other factors that are largely affecting this? Logistic costs are rising. You said that besides Shanghai, you are using other ports because Shanghai lockdown is the only reason. Could you elaborate on how the raw materials and logistic costs are rising and it's impacting you?
Yes. Thank you. As we said that the raw material -- the biggest increase, of course, we saw one of the biggest increase in steel than aluminum and in plastics. Now moving forward, some of the raw materials, when it comes to the battery raw material, some material is rising, some materials are going down. On the other side, we have done the financial hedging and also the physical hedging, especially the physical hedging for the precious metals, as we directly procure some of them from the mines. So we do believe that we want to mitigate more and more the raw material price hike, which will come in the next quarters.
Now when it comes to logistics costs, maybe this is for -- maybe one of the first time we have highlighted the logistic cost because this quarter, the logistic cost impact was extremely high. Of course, one of the reason is we can say that we use many temporary ports, temporary freight arrangements to keep our business running, though there were lockdowns in some of the ports.
The second is also coming from that the shipping industry is still not out of post-pandemic concession they have. And definitely, the ships are taking much more time to go from Japan to United States from United States. So definitely, we clearly see the increase in the freight cost. And finally, as we all know that energy prices are going down, that also impacts the logistics cost.
For us, these logistics costs are going to occur. What we have to do now is to work on optimization of the total end-to-end delivery cost by mitigating it with the other factors. Now moving forward, for us, for the next 3 quarters, what is very important is to challenge the 4 million retail sales volume because we believe that when it comes to operating profit and the net income, based on our quarter 1 performance, we are very confident of achieving that annual forecast on operating profit and net income.
[Interpreted] This will be the final question. Mainichi Shimbun, [ Takeshi-san ], please.
[Interpreted] This is [ Takeshi ] of Mainichi. I hope you can hear me.
[Interpreted] Yes. Please go ahead.
[Interpreted] Just one question on ForEx and domestic production recovery. You said yen depreciation, you're taking advantage of that. And for domestic production, in the form of domestic production to be exported, do you think that, that would positively impact your performance because there's the possibility of this [ GPN ] continuing for some time? So what about production increase for Japan? What's the likelihood?
Thank you. So we first focus on our operational excellence, and we want to deliver performance by operational excellence, driven by the local customer in the local market. That's what is the global policy we have. So which means we don't believe in changing the production allocation on short-term basis just because of the foreign exchange because foreign exchange is something which is not in our hands. So definitely, what we look at is the sustainability of the foreign exchange based on which we can operate our production plans.
On the other side, when we look at Japan, Japan for us, domestic market is so important. And this is the reason in Nissan NEXT when we said that in 18 months, we will be launching 12 new models. The maximum model launches were in Japan. And when we look at quarter 1, our sales performance in domestic market in Japan, we have improved our market share by 1.4x -- 1.4%. Note and Aura is #1 electrified car in first 6 months. The top 3 battery electric cars in Japan are represented by Nissan in the Japanese OEMs. And we just now revealed the X-Trail e-POWER, which is also going to be one of the success.
So our focus is have the advanced technology, new models well stabilized in Japan and then use Japan for export to the locations where we are optimizing our fixed cost. For example, the X-Trail e-POWER definitely will be exported out of Japan. But when it comes to the local competitiveness, for example, the United States, United States is also making Rogue and our Kyushu plant is also making Rogue.
So here, we always take the advantage of how we balance the foreign exchange. So once again, Japan is our domestic market. We are very much concentrating with the domestic models. You have seen the Sakura now. But of course, we are increasing the production not only for Japan but also for export. That's what is the benefit we are looking at -- but we don't want to just change our business module just because of foreign exchange because that's not in our hand. I hope it answers your question.
[Interpreted] Okay. Thank you. We ran out of time. So with this, we would like to conclude the announcement. Thank you for joining this session, and good day.
[Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]