Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.
Q1 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 14 May 2022

[Operator:]

Thank you very much for attending the press conference announcing the Nissan Motor’s Fiscal 2020 Financial Results. Thank you for attending in such a large number. In view of the current situation, this meeting will be using the internet system and live streaming. First of all, let me introduce the attendees of the meeting. President and CEO, Mr. Makoto Uchida; COO, Ashwani Gupta and CFO, Stephen Ma. I asked for your kind cooperation. Now, without further ado, let me invite Mr. Uchida to speak.

[Makoto Uchida:]

Thank you for joining us today. To begin with, I would like to express our sincere gratitude to all the healthcare workers around the world who are on the frontlines of battling COVID-19. Nissan continues to place the highest priority on the safety of everyone we work with and serve, including the customers, dealers, suppliers, employees and their families. We are doing our utmost to prevent infections, while running our operations. The fiscal year 2020 was the year of big changes dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic and impacted by multiple factors, including the growth of environmental awareness and political and economic changes. Despite the challenges, Nissan has been making steady progress in implementing Nissan NEXT business transformation plans, which we announced last May. As I said in February, we are seeing encouraging results, thanks to our employees who are doing their utmost every day to bring Nissan back, despite the challenging climate, and all our business partners who are working with us to overcome the difficulties. I would like to express my sincere appreciation for your strong support and contribution. Our COO Ashwani Gupta will cover the full year performance for the fiscal year 2020. And I will present the outlook for the fiscal year 2021. Ashwani San, over to you.

[Ashwani Gupta:]

Thank you, Uchida San. Good afternoon, everyone. This year has been indeed an evolutionary journey for Nissan, and a true test of our resilience and agility. Amidst all the uncertainty, we have been clocking regular progress, thanks to the hard work of our employees and partners who are relentlessly driving forward Nissan's business transformation. Let me now go over the fiscal year 2020 performance and the progress of Nissan NEXT. First, as you can see on the left graph, our global retail sales for FY 2020 is 4.052 million, which is 0.9% ahead of our sales volume forecast. Second, quarter by quarter, we continued to adopt to the new normal and have been meeting the growing needs of our customers. Third, through the end of the fourth quarter, Nissan has achieved sales growth ahead of the average industry volumes, underscoring the importance of our recovery efforts. Despite many headwinds, pandemic supply chain constraints, including semiconductor shortage, in the fourth quarter, our sales grew by 18%, with respect to the market growth of 2%. This growth was feared both by the performance of our current models and the newly launched ones including all-new Rogue in the United States, all-new Note in Japan, all-new Magnite in India and others. With regards to current models, we saw an increase in segment share, for models like Juke in Europe, Sylphy in China. Now to recap, last year, we begin our four year Nissan NEXT business transformation plan based on three pillars. At first rationalization, it was focused on reducing our fixed costs in line with our sales potential from 7.2 million to 5.4 million capacity. Number two, prioritization and focus. On core markets, with core products, and technologies to strengthen quality of sales by shifting from volume to value. Number three, growth, plan and prepare new products and technologies to drive growth during and beyond Nissan NEXT. Through FY 2020, Nissan made steady progress. We were able to balance our immediate performance recovery efforts with foundational elements to bridge to the future. Now, let me go through each pillar. First, rationalization. Over the course of the year, Nissan has undertaken several key initiatives to reduce fixed cost across our operations, leading to a significant overall reduction. We are optimizing production capacity. We decided to close two plants and moving worldwide operations from three shifts to two shifts, thereby reducing costs by 7%. With a clear focus on customer value, we decided to streamline our product portfolio from 69 to 55 models by '23. In FY 2020, the plan is on track, bringing product related costs down by 5%. For marketing and sales, Nissan has made significant progress, reducing costs by 37%, as we strategically allocated budget towards a more focused impactful mixture of marketing, sponsorships and motor shows. Our enhanced efforts in digital sales experience, resulted in 12% of our global sales coming through digital customer journey. To optimize general and administrative costs, we made some radical decisions from consolidation of seven diversified regions into four equivalent regions, Americas, Japan-ASEAN, AMIEO and China to efficiently manage the assets and facilities. These efforts led to an 11% reduction of G&A costs during the FY 2020. All together, we have delivered over ¥350 billion in cost reductions, exceeding our objective of ¥300 billion reduction versus FY 2018. With this fix cost reduction, we are now able to bring down operating profit breakeven sales volume by 12%. In FY 2018, our breakeven volume was approximately 5 million units. But now, we can start generating profit with approximately 4.4 million units. This reinforces our strategy to pull profitable growth by value. Turning to our efforts to priorities and focus on Nissan's strengths. During FY 2020, Nissan made significant improvements to the quality of our sales globally, which is critical to achieving long-term profitable growth. If we look at our two top most indicators, throughout FY 2020, we steadily grew revenue rate per unit quarter-on-quarter through value pricing and by delivering attractive all new models and technology that meet customer's aspirations. Second, in line with our sales transformation plan, we moved from push to pull strategy. With this, our inventories were optimally managed, contributing to call it your sales, but most importantly, generating operating free cash flow. And finally, for each of our core markets, quality of sales was a central priority, as Nissan focused on value based core offering for our customers. In the United States, all of our business transformation indicators are in the right direction. Nissan improved net revenue per unit by 3.8%. And at the same time, reduce incentives by 4.6%. We have also seen improvement in the franchise value for our dealers, demonstrating strong business engagement and confidence. The response by customers to the all-new Rogue has been positive with 7.4% segment share. This has helped lift our overall market share during the fourth quarter to 5.8%. Similarly, in Japan, while models like Kicks e-POWER and Rogue’s continued to do well, the introduction of the all new Note e-POWER drove Nissan's segment share and overall market share to 11.4% with an increase in the net revenue per unit. Our strengths as a technology brand is demonstrated well in Japan our home market, with more than 0.5 million customers driving e-POWER. By the end of FY 2020, 50% of our cars have advanced driver assistance features, allowing customers to enjoy the choice of delegation or control. In China, we kept our discipline on incentives for existing models, while gaining market share, which remains an all time high for Nissan. This minimize the impact to net revenue per unit despite market transaction prices going down. Now moving forward with the all new X-Trail and the Sylphy E-POWER, along with a robust feature lineup, we will target an increase in net revenue per unit, leveraging our core technologies to meet the aspiration of tech-savvy market, China. Lastly, in Europe, our focused approach has delivered encouraging results throughout the end of the fiscal year. We achieved significant reduction of 34% in our fixed costs by rationalizing our production and leveraging the Alliance resources for the projects like EV-Van and E-Tech. This supported an overall improvement in net revenue per unit. Moving forward, Nissan will continue to electrify crossovers like Qashqai and X-Trail with Nissan unique e-POWER technology. Our Product Offensive contributed to our positive results with the Nissan Juke, achieving an increase in sales and revenue per unit. With the launch of our core product, the new Qashqai both ICE and e-POWER, we aim to further increase net revenue per unit in Europe. Customer is at the core of our product and technology strategy. We based our Nissan A to Z proposal on the needs and aspiration of today's customer and promised to deliver 12 new products in 18 months. We are proud to say that we are delivering on this promise with 11 models launch or unveil to-date, which are and will bring growth during and beyond the Nissan NEXT. As we continue to invest in innovative technologies, here are the three key focus ones. First, e-FORCE, an electric traction system that allows the driver to have full confidence and control while at the same time enjoy the excitement of electric motor drive in a variety of road conditions. Second, ProPILOT with Navi-link, our newest autonomous human centric feature that helps the driver to adjust vehicle control based on road conditions, including speed limits, and sharp curves et cetera. Third one, ProPILOT remote parking and automated remote parking system which allows for control of the car from the outside to enter and exit narrow, but also unmarked isolated parking spaces. Now finally, this slide illustrates our financial key performance trend quarter-on-quarter for fiscal year 2020. Despite the challenges faced by the automotive industry, we have continued our efforts to improve quality of sales and rationalize the cost base under Nissan NEXT. Our first quarter was negatively impacted by COVID pandemic. And we finished the year with operating loss of ¥150.7 billion on equity basis and ¥28.6 billion on China JV proportionate basis. For the nine months period, quarter two, quarter three, quarter four, our operating profit total to positive ¥3.3 billion on an equity basis, and a positive ¥107.4 billion on China JV proportionate basis. Similarly, from quarter two to three to four, our free cash flow for the automotive segment was positive ¥424.7 billion on an equity basis, and ¥538.2 billion on China JV proportionate basis. For fiscal year 2020, consolidated net revenues were ¥7.9 trillion, operating loss totaled ¥150.7 billion and net loss was ¥448.7 billion. Net revenues and operating profit decrease year-on-year primary due to the decline in unit sales resulting from COVID-19 pandemic, especially, in the first quarter. For the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2020, operating loss was JPY 19 billion, which was an improvement of JPY 75.8 billion from the previous year. The net loss was JPY81 billion for the quarter. This slide illustrates the radiance analysis from the fourth quarter operating loss from the previous year. Foreign Exchange had a negative impact of JPY 15.2 billion, primarily due to depreciation in the US dollar. Volume and mix, parts sales and others had a positive impact of JPY 27 billion, thanks to the increase in the sales volume. The most notable improvement came from pricing and selling expense, which resulted in a JPY 73.4 billion positive impact. This was primarily due to the enhancement in the quality of sales in United States, which contributed to more than half of this improvement. Monozukuri fixed cost and others had a negative impact of JPY 9.4 billion. Increases in regulatory and product enrichment costs, raw material prices, manufacturing and other expenses were partially offset by reductions in purchasing cost. In February, we revised upward our operating loss outlook for fiscal year 2020 to JPY 205 billion. From this outlook, we reduce the operating loss by JPY 54.3 billion to JPY 150.7 billion. JPY 30 billion improvement from the sales performance, mainly driven by value pricing, and JPY 20 billion came from the sales finance business and JPY 4.3 was from the other items. We continue to maintain strong levels of liquidity. At the end of March 2021, cash and cash equivalents were approximately JPY 1.9 trillion and our net cash was JPY 636 billion for the automotive segment. Furthermore, we continue to have approximately JPY 2.2 trillion in unused committed credit lines. As a summary, I can say number one, despite headwinds, we have reduced our losses more than we forecasted due to accelerated transformation, focused on rationalization and quality of sales while enhancing investments in new products and new technologies. Number two, quarter two, quarter three, quarter four positive op and positive free cash flow even on equity basis, which is without China JV gives us confidence about the robustness of our operational efficiency and effectiveness. Number three, moving forward, our new breakeven point of 4.4 million volume gives us confidence to pull profitable growth for our sales potential of 5.4 million in Nissan NEXT. With our strengths, achievements, learnings, but also cautious recognition of the remaining and new potential challenges we get into 2021. I will now turn over to Uchida San to walk through the outlook of FY '21.

[Makoto Uchida:]

Yes. Thank you. Coming to our full year outlook for the fiscal year 2021. For fiscal year 2021, the global auto market is expected to remain uncertain as the semiconductor supply issue continues to impact the industry and Nissan is no exception. We expect to see the impact mainly in the first quarter. Though, it is difficult to forecast our sales volume for the year at this time, we currently estimate Nissan's units of sales to increase by 8.6% over the prior year, in which we saw a huge decline due to the impact of COVID-19 to 4.4 million units. This is a financial outlook for the fiscal year 2021, based on the global sales assumption of 4.4 million units. We are forecasting net revenues of JPY 9.1 trillion and an operating profit coming out even our net loss is expected to be JPY 60 billion. Despite ongoing challenges, Nissan continues investing actively for future growth, including R&D expenses, and capital investments. This slide provides the year-on-year analysis of the operating profit variance for the fiscal year forecast. External factors including foreign exchange fluctuations, and increasing regulatory and product enrichment costs are expected to have a negative impact of approximately JPY 100 billion. Performance improvement in sales and monozukuri is expected to have a positive net impact of about JPY 550 billion, which is significant, while costs associated with new product launches will impact operating profit by JPY 150 billion. These are necessary investments towards achieving Nissan NEXT and the growth beyond. The company faces huge businesses such as the global shortage of semiconductor and surging commodity prices for the year. Excluding these factors, we expect to achieve an operating margin of more than 2%, including the proportionate consolidation of results from the joint venture operation in China. As we make every possible effort to minimize these risks, we forecast on operating profit to come out even for the fiscal year at this time. Nissan remains focused on actions to mitigate the negative impacts of the challenges including semiconductor shortage and will update as needed in the first quarter earnings announcement. Our focus for this year we'll continue to be on delivering on the Nissan NEXT plan. Our challenge ahead of us is to maintain the financial discipline and our focus on better quality of sales and raise the company's earning capabilities through our products, which is at the heart of our business. The results of our initiatives are starting to take shape. Customer confidence is improving as indicated by the J.D. Power Customer Satisfaction Index and Sales Satisfaction Index in the United States and China. Nissan Rogue in the US has the highest overall buyer satisfaction ever across our lineup. Qashqai, which created SUV segment in Europe, enjoys strongest demand among our products in the market. The all new X-Trail that was revealed in the recent Shanghai Motor Show is earning accolades across the markets including the best upcoming new car award. The all new Note e-POWER in our home market, Japan received high acclaim as a superior compact car that offers driving performance and upscale feeling. In addition to these models, this year Nissan is introducing the all-new Ariya crossover EV. The all-new Z sportscar that represents our DNA and the Infiniti QX60, that opens a new era of the Infiniti brand. We will be introducing to the markets these models that express who we are. And the all-new Ariya crossover EV, a fusion of SUV and EV fronts will open the new era of EV providing a seamless user experience and EV values beyond what customers see today and open a brand new era with around 200,000 hand raisers, we expected to grow into a model that symbolizes our brand. The all new Kei car EV, which we are jointly developing with Mitsubishi Motors at NMKV will be introduce in Japan ahead of our competition. We are also widening the application of the e-POWER system across our models and extending it beyond Japan success to China and Europe. In China, we are applying the e-POWER system to six models by 2025. Starting with Sylphy this fiscal year, in Europe Qashqai will adopt the world's first variable compression engine, which is mass produced engineered by Nissan VC-Turbo as an engine dedicated for power generation, we also plan to introduce all new X-Trail e-POWER next fiscal year in the market. Nissan will be delivering additional e-POWER equipped models in Japan. We will keep on delivering compelling products that enhance our profitability and brand power to eventually hit 5% operating margin, which is the final goal of Nissan NEXT into fiscal year 2023. In January, Nissan has set the goal to achieve carbon neutrality across the company's operations and the lifecycle of its products by 2050. As part of this effort by the early 2030s, all you new Nissan vehicle offering in key markets will be electrified. To address electrification in case, ongoing investments are inevitable. Nissan will continue spending enough amount of capital investment and R&D expenses towards this. Nissan is an EV pioneer who has been promoting EV penetration and the realization of a zero emission society. Recently, many car makers began launching EVs in the market. However, Nissan is the only player globally that has the 10-year rich experience and knowledge and taking a holistic approach towards the entire lifecycle. To increase penetration of electrified vehicles, we need to update the technology and reduce the cost at the same time. This requires a long-term strategy and continuous effort. Nissan is increasing it’s competitive edge in developing batteries and the electrical part plays, the core components electrified vehicles by maximizing the use of the alliance leader followers theme. We are developing batteries according to a long-term roadmap. We are thinking economies of scale and greater competitiveness in technology by aligning specifications and increasing urbanization within the alliance. At the same time, Nissan continues to working on various innovations including development of cobalt less battery, and all-solid state batteries. The company is not only sharing pathways within the alliance but also further promoting common use of EV and e-POWER components such as motor and inverter. Furthermore, the on-road -- onboard gasoline engine that will be used for a generator for the next-generation e-POWER system will reach the world's leading 50% thermal efficiency for better fuel efficiency, CO2 emission reduction and cost competitiveness. Nissan's efforts are not limited to technological advancements on the manufacturing shop, our team is driving innovations for better efficiency of vehicle assembly and development of eco friendly plant. As we introduced the Nissan Intelligent Factory into Tochigi here, we are going to start production of the new Ariya. This March Nissan announced plans for a major expansion to renewable energy generation at its plant in Sunderland United Kingdom. This would result in 20% of the plant's energy coming from all onsite renewables enough to build every single zero emission Nissan LEAF so in Europe. We will expand the initiatives to build the next generation factories in and outside Japan. Nissan does not only intend to sell EVs, but also make various contributions to society through EV. EV batteries are already used for mobile energy storage on many occasions including energy management of a household or a building and an emergency power supply. The company has signed over 125 agreements under the Blue Switch program that is designed to address societal issues in Japan by using EVs. Nissan is recycling and repurposing use batteries through operation by 4R Energy Corporation. Used Nissan LEAF batteries are given second life to store solar energy and help stabilize power supply. Nissan is engaged in a number of field operation tests working with authorities and partner companies around the world in the areas of new community development and mobility service capitalizing on electrification and autonomous driving technologies. The company is also working with local communities in Yokohama city and Fukushima Prefecture to solve local societal issues and build new community. This initiative of contributing to actual society by leveraging automotive technologies that we have been developing for years is an approach which only Nissan can afford under the spirit of dare to do what others don't, which is our core believe. Nissan is taking on challenges with fashion and is driving innovations. We have been providing new values to our customers through innovative products and services, empowering their journeys and our society. This is Nissan-ness and raison d'être [ph] of our company. We will continue taking on challenges with a strong focus on enriching people's lives. Thank you for your kind attention.

[Operator:]

Yes, thank you for your kind attention. Now, we would like to entertain questions from the floor. If you have a question please push raise hand button on the zoom system. It would be appreciated if you could limit the number of questions to two for person. Thank you for your understanding. Now I would like to ask Nikkei Shimbun, Hatano-san [ph]. Hatano-san, please. We are going to switching over the camera and we see him okay. Hatano-san, please go ahead with your question.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Thank you. I am Hatano [ph] from Nikkei Shimbun. Thank you for the opportunity. There are a couple of questions. There's a full year outlook. In Nissan NEXT, you are aiming at 2% operating margin, but you're falling short according to the full year guidance. How do you assess this projection? And in fiscal year 2023, 5% is what we are aiming at. And how are you going to work on this 5% operating margin by 2023? This is the first question. And there's another one which is about North America sales forecasts as well as the latest situation of the sales in North America. Compared with other car makers, it seems like you are bit weak. But you are focusing on quality. And that is why, if possible, could you share with us how you assess the sales performance in North America? Thank you.

[Makoto Uchida:]

First of all, thank you for the question. Start -- for the North America sales projection, I would like to ask Gupta -- to answer. But starting with the first question, which is about 5% operating margin in Nissan NEXT. Here as I said -- as we showed you in the results of fiscal year 2020, the goals of Nissan NEXT are all achieved so far by ensuring financial discipline and we are increasing our product to deliver value based on new products rather than expanding the sales, we are focusing on quality and we have better quality of sales. If you look at these results without the new upcoming new cars, we will be able to deliver new values to the customers. And we believe that we can achieve 5% operating margin eventually. But if you look at the immediate challenges today in fiscal year 2021, there is a big impact semiconductor and commodity price hikes. So at this point of time, operating -- in operating profit, we are foreseeing coming out even in equity basis, or 1%, including joint venture in China. However, we will continue taking actions and in the end of July when we show you the results of Q1 of this fiscal year, we will show you the clear outlook for the full year at need. And the second question was about North America, overall in North America our quality of sales are definitely improving. I'm sure you recognize that. But in order to answer your questions, I would like to ask the -- Gupta to answer the question. Thank you, Ashwini over to you.

[Ashwini Gupta:]

Before getting into the detailed answer, let me again remind how we are managing the United States transformation plan. At source, we are changing the culture in United States the way we do business and to change the culture at source, we change the product. With the launch of Centra and all new Rogue, we have renewed roughly 1/3 of our business in the United States. Moving forward, renewing all new parts finder, renewing all new frontier, we will be renewing two-thirds of our products with the latest technology and the latest designs. That's how we are changing the product. Number two is changing the business with the partners. And we have changed the way we do business with our dealers, creating more and more dealer confidence and dealer engagement. And number three, is the change, the people and we had the new leadership team, which has taken charge of the United States in -- since one year now. So we’ve changed the product, change the business, change the people, finally achieved change the culture. This is what we are doing in United States. As we shared before, quarter four, we have started seeing the retail sales growth, but not only the volume, but also in line with volume to value, our net revenue per unit is increasing. Now to answer precisely to your question, we will keep the discipline on the sales -- quality of sales. However, as Nissan globally, we have touched the breakeven point of 4.4 million. And now with the new products and the new technologies, and the new business confidence with our partners, especially the dealers, we will move forward for the growth. And this is what we have shown in quarter four. And this is what we will show moving forward in 2021. So at first, we are competing with ourselves before we compete with the competitors, maybe in quarter one, when we will meet again. At that time, I will answer the question how we are better than the competitors? But today, what I can say that Nissan is much better than what Nissan was yesterday in United States. Thank you.

[Unidentified Company Speaker:]

Thank you. Okay, moving on to the next question. NHK [Indiscernible]. It's your turn.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

May I?

[Unidentified Company Speaker:]

Yes, yes, go ahead with your question, [Indiscernible].

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Yes, thank you for the opportunity, in fiscal year 2021, you showed us and outlook and business risks will have an impact on your performance and semiconductor impact and commodity price hike were indicated. And what's the breakdown of the potential impact? What is the biggest impact that you foresee? And the second question is the sales projection of 4.4 million units for the fiscal year 2021. From the end of this year, you have been recovering your sales. And after you -- as you continue the sales recovery, I think you are seeing the business risk about what is the assumption on which you calculated this 4.4 million units? These are the two questions. Thank you.

[Makoto Uchida:]

Thank you for the questions. Starting with the business risk assumption for the fiscal year 2021 forecast, semiconductor supply issue is approximately in 2021, 500,000 units level is the impact on production volume that we foresee, but in the second half of the fiscal year 2021, about half of this impact is what we intend to recover. That's the assumption of this calculation. And commodity price hike, every day, the price is hiking. So based on what we see today, as we have shown you in just step charge, this is the business that we foresee. But with our efforts, we would like to come -- to come out even with the operating profit and this is what we foresee as of today. And the sales volume. Needless to say, a nice on next in fiscal year 2020 -- as looking at the results of 2020, if you look at the TIV, it's very difficult to forecast TIV. And as we assume the market presence and upcoming new models impact, based on these factors, we came to 4.4 million units including the semiconductor supply shortage impact. The regional breakdown, Ashwani, if you have anything to add, could you elaborate?

[Ashwani Gupta:]

Thank you, for this question [Indiscernible]. Just to give a hypothesis, why we are confident on the sales numbers which we are projecting, roughly the 2020, the global automotive market was roughly 77 million and out of 77 million, we did roughly 4.05 million as retail sales. In FY 2021, we anticipate that the global market will be around 85 million, which is 10% increase year-on-year. And when you look at our forecast, which is 4.4 million, it is close to 9% year-on-year. So basically market by market, we are growing in line with the market. And obviously, this is after we incorporate the semiconductor race and more and more we recover the semiconductor race, more and more we will grow in terms of volume and market share. That's the hypothesis we have taken to forecast this 4.4 million.

[Unidentified Company Representative:]

Thank you very much. Next question.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

[Foreign Language] Thank you. I am [Indiscernible]. I have two questions. First of all, with regard to electrification strategy, the older companies are now trying to increase electrification. Now, what is your strategy, once again could you elaborate on that? In that case the procurement of batteries and also development engineering will be important. So, could you share with us the ideas regarding these points? Second point, taken part in this and next up to now, in the Japanese auto market, what kind of impact did it create and what are you going to strengthen in terms of Nissan NEXT?

[Makoto Uchida:]

Thank you for your question. Now, in Nissan, electrification strategy, that is the question. The pillar is over strategy is fourfold earlier as we explained. Based on that explanation, I'd like to say that for one thing, what is very important is that very every country, various countries are moving very rapidly in order to achieve decarbonization. Against this backdrop, we have to align ourselves to market situation, in order to launch our products in order to come up with a strategy; I think that alignment is very important. These are the electrification speed of every country differs from one country to another, from one region to another. Therefore, depending on that difference in depending on the market needs, we have to have a strategy with electrification that is EV, e-Power electrification, we are going to launch EV, e-Power. Depending on region, the total cost of ownership is different. Therefore, we have to closely watch that. Therefore, we need to launch cars which are accepted by customers in order to increase the corporate value of Nissan. On the other hand, having said that, compared to ICE, electrified vehicles competitiveness, if we look at that, what is important there are twofold; one is technology innovation. With regard to technology innovation, for example, in our alliance, as was mentioned briefly earlier, we are going to integrate specifications to have us economies of scale. On the other hand, we want to optimize development costs. So, such technology, innovation, and also communization efforts, we can raise a third pillar, that is a cooperation strategy with suppliers and also localization effort. So, in this regard, we have to have a comprehensive mid-term strategy, which is now being discussed. In order to increase cost competitiveness in our key markets, localization would be very important. Therefore, on this matter as well, as of now, I have nothing to disclose you to you, but within Alliance framework and also cooperation with governments of various countries, we like to pursue cooperation. Lastly, Nissan's strength is electrification and we want to go beyond that framework of electrification. As I said earlier, we have a 10-year long experience in this area. Therefore, we like to have a comprehensive effort covering lifecycle that will lead to greater value of Nissan. And also, we like -- I think we can get the recognition by customers that will lead to higher sales volume. So, in doing so, we are going to continue with Nissan NEXT with electrification endeavor.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Perhaps additional comments -- supplementary comments regarding battery, Ashwani-san, could you give a further comment regarding batteries?

[Ashwani Gupta:]

Thank you. It's a great question being asked on financial announcement day. Thank you for asking this. As you know, Nissan is pioneer in the electrification. Let me start from a very simple statement that, for Nissan, electrification is not the objective. It is the consequence of the customer's choice. Now we as car manufacturer, with the stakeholders, we have to act as enabler for customer to make this decision of electrification. So that's what is Nissan looking for? Now, how we can make customer choice easier and easier towards the electrification, is our job. And I believe there are three things. Number one is, the competitive product offering in terms of driving excitement and driving experience, which should be better, than ice engine. And this is what Nissan is doing on Aria where the driving excitement in terms of exploration is even better than a sports car. The second, where the question comes to your battery, is the total cost of ownership, seen from the customer should be less than an ice car. Now how we can make this total cost of ownership better in the battery Evie is a question. And the third is, environment and whereas, we need the awareness and importance of the environmental regulations, whether to China 7, Euro 7 and so on. So now coming to the battery, how we can make the battery competitive, in terms of technology, in terms of cost, but also in terms of the industry sourcing. As you saw, that Uchida just explain in his presentation on the battery, Nissan has got the core technology of the battery development, we started with the first generation leaf, then the second generation leaf, and now, we are coming up with the Ariya which means, we have already traveled more than more than 10 years in the battery development. Now moving forward, how we can make the battery more-and-more competitive is the technology breakthrough. And we are targeting to achieve less than $100 to a kilowatt hour in the Next Technology, which we will develop. And then, further to that, we are targeting to do $75 to a kilowatt hour, which means, market-by-market, region-by-region, depending on the total cost of ownership, there has to be tipping point, for customer to decide that, let's change from ice to electric. Then the finally the question comes, the industrialization. Nissan has got the four electric plants in China, in Europe, in Japan, in United States. And these plants are attached with the battery plants and moving forward, with the new technology with the best cost which we are going to target and the four industrial locations, I think Nissan is very well placed to lead the electrification in the in the coming future. Thank you.

[Makoto Uchida:]

[Indiscernible]

[Ashwani Gupta:]

And the second question, which is about, how do we assess Japan? I think that was the remaining question in the past, where we announced the Nissan Next, I said that, Japan is our home-market, in the home-market we want to demonstrate our potential. That's what I said, if I remember correctly. Last year in terms of products, we have Kicks e-Power which are well received, and a variety of new strength whether it’s a Nissan Intelligent Factory in Tochigi. We are communicating many new values of Nissan in Japan. And while we demonstrate our potential in Japan, we would like to expand it to the rest of the regions, to enhance the overall ability and power of Nissan globally. From this viewpoint, the objective of Nissan NEXT is achieved in Japan last year and we are going to strengthen it further going forward.

[Operator:]

Thank you very much. Okay, moving on to the next question, Automotive news. Hassan [ph], please go ahead with your question.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Hello, there. Yes. I would like to follow on the question of the electrification and the net neutrality or net carbon neutrality by 2050. Can you achieve that goal with the ICE still your lineup? In other words, some companies are going completely ICE free, gasoline free, diesel free, do you see a day sometime in Nissan's future by 2050, where you will have no more basically internal combustion engines in your lineup by that time? And as a related question, can you give us your current stance on hydrogen fuel cells? I think that Nissan hasn't been in that market or in that game for hydrogen for quite some time now, a couple years, I guess. Can you give us maybe your future outlook, if there's potential for that to be in your technology toolbox going ahead. Thank you.

[Makoto Uchida:]

Thank you for the question Hassan. I said in early 2030s. I said that we are going to electrify the new product offering in key markets. That's what I said. But at the end of the day, it's up to the customers. For example, whether it's a battery EV or e-POWER, these are chosen by customers, it's up to the customer's choice. So as I said, total cost of ownership, we need to deliver a total cost of ownership versus a customer value. If we can do this, we are able to attain carbon neutrality in 2050. And in early 2030s, we will be able to electrify the vehicles and offer them to the customers. And don't we have any ICE by the time? That was your question, but that's up to the customers to choose. Needless to say, there are areas where we contribute to environmental friendliness. There are a lot of initiatives that we need to drive and customer needs. We need to strike a balance between the two and make sure that customers do recognize and appreciate it. This is the only answer that I can give you as of today. And the second question, which is about EV Technology, for the time being under Nissan NEXT, we are going to focus on two pillars, which is battery EV and e-POWER technology. This is our position for now. Thank you.

[Operator:]

Thank you very much for the questions-and-answer. Moving on to Toyo Keizai, Yokoyama [ph]. The floor is yours.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Toyo Keizai Yokoyami speaking. Can you hear me?

[Makoto Uchida:]

Yes, go ahead with your question.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Yes. Thank you for the opportunity. Excuse me. With regards to North America, I have additional question. According to institutional survey, your incentives are being reduced largely, that's my impression at least. So how are you going – are you going to further reduce the sales incentive in North America? If you have a goal, in order to aim at the goal, what are the remaining challenges that you need to address in North America? What are the challenges in North America that you see? And the second point, earlier Uchida, you said that in the first quarter results, you are going to show the updated outlook NEET [ph]. But what – the full year outlook that you are showing today will be improved in Q1, which is July? This is what I expect. With regards to North America, I would like to ask, Ashwani-san to elaborate on that. So I would like to answer the second part of your question.

[Ashwani Gupta:]

Thank you. So, yes, very glad to see that you have recognized that we are moving in the right direction in United States. Yes, you are absolutely right. We are doing two things in United States, when it comes to the quality of sales, we are shifting from push to pull and from volume to value, which means the incentives are automatically coming down because customer is willing to pay by recognizing the value we are putting in the car and we are making it so much attractive that it is becoming aspirational. Now moving forward, we are not setting up any objective of the incentive because we believe that if we keep the quality of discipline in the sales with a strong dealer engagement, the incentives will come down naturally. So we want incentives to come down as a result and not an objective. Our objective is to keep the quality of discipline, which is to do to pull the business driven by the customer and the product aspiration. So as I said before, we have seen the significant increase in the customer profile in Sentra followed by all new Rogue. Now we have Pathfinder, then Frontier, then Aria and with that we will be renewing two-third of our product lineup. So once again with the change in the product, with the change in the business we do we are confident that we will move forward in United States to bring back the profitable growth for Nissan.

[Makoto Uchida:]

Yes, going back to the second question which is about the projection or outlook. Yes, needless to say, as we run our business we want to deliver good results as much as possible. That's our intention. But on the other hand, today the impact from semiconductor and the commodity price hike, the speed of the impact is so big. So we need to scrutinize the potential impact and identify the plan which can mitigate the impact. And with transparency, we would like to show these information that that is why we talked about operating profit at zero coming out even as of today.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Thanks.

[Makoto Uchida:]

Okay. Thank you very much. We are running out of time so this will be the final question from the floor. Wall Street Journal, Shaun san [ph]. The floor is yours.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

[Foreign Language] Thanks for taking my question. Two quick questions. Can you quantify for us the impact on production from the supply chain shortages in the previous financial year? And going forward, what do you think the impact is going to be specifically from the semiconductor shortage and maybe even two numbers, specifically from the Renaissance shortage on your production this year?

[Makoto Uchida:]

[Foreign Language] You're talking about 2020, in fact and this year, you are asking about two questions, right? So with regards to -- yes, with regards to last year, I talked about the fiscal year -- last year, Ashwani-san will elaborate on that.

[Ashwani Gupta:]

Thank you. Thank you, Shaun. So for 2020 the semiconductor shortage, the global Nissan had what -- was around 130,000, but out of 130,000, we could recover 50% that's what was the actual in 2020 for Nissan. For 2021, as we said before we expect 500,000 mainly coming from the Renaissance fire incident. However, the Renaissance is recovering much faster than we expected. So, we anticipate that in the second half, we will be recovering half of the semiconductor shortage, which we anticipate in 2021. This is one part of the story. The other part of the story is obviously post pandemic. We all have learned many things from our supply chain mechanism. And when I say we, which means not only Nissan, but I think all automotive companies and I think that this supply chain challenges will continue till the time we are closing the supply and demand gap, which did not only arise because of the automotive markets coming back, but which also are arising because the non automotive market, which are using the same tier end and the small components common with automotive are in the big demand. So, to put it simple, I think supply chain will be under challenge in the coming year. However, it's up to us that how much resilient and agile we are in adjusting our production and the sales in line with this challenge on short term. And on the mid-term, how we are realigning our supply chain strategy to meet future risk, which are based on unpredictable scenarios because today, our backup plan for supply chain is based on predictable scenarios. So, I think based on this learning, we need to we need to define our supply chain based on unpredictable scenarios. So I think that answers your question. Semiconductor, plus something will come up, but we are prepared for it. Thank you.

[Operator:]

Okay. Thank you, gentlemen. With this, we'd like to conclude the Q&A session. Lastly, I would like to ask Uchida to say a closing remark.

[Makoto Uchida:]

Yeah, thank you for many questions. Nissan is heading in the right direction. Thanks to Nissan NEXT. Despite the business risks, Nissan will definitely hit the goal as long as we remain focused on the business transformation. I am committed to join forces with Nissan people who are passionately engaged in the reform around the world and make Nissan shine again. Thank you for your ongoing support. Thank you for your kind attention. Before we close, we would like to show you Nissan's updates on the A to Z video from this past year. Thank you again for joining us today.