José Román, director de Nissan Latinoamérica y el Caribe

Thank you very much. A warm greeting to my Ecuadorian compatriots. It's really a pleasure to have you here at the stand in Detroit. We're very happy to present one of the best products in the region and obviously one of the best pickup products in all of North America. We're launching the new Nissan Titan, the Titan as it's called here. It's a product we were missing in the American market. In the American market, there's very strong competition in the large pickup segment and we were a bit short on product. We wanted to compensate for that product line, and we're launching the new completely redesigned pickup, new generation. You'll see later — I imagine Walter will do a complete description of the product — but basically it's a new generation of pickups that we're bringing to the American market.

The design is totally new. We have several important themes, but beyond the design, I think the fundamental thing here is that it's a heavy-duty pickup, meaning high-work capacity, and basically the big novelty is the new Cummins diesel engine that we're launching in the market. So if we have a heavy-duty, high-resistance pickup and on top of that a diesel engine, I think we have the perfect combination to compete in the toughest and most competitive market where there are excellent competitors, as is North America.

Yes, well, we already have a global standard — let's say we're at international quality. We're among the best of the best. These last two years have been very aggressive in terms of product launches. We've had — you've seen in the market and on the streets of different Latin American countries — the launches we've had: Sentra, Altima, X-Trail, Qashqai, different products that we've been having in the markets. So we're very happy, a lot of work in the market, and obviously customers are responding because we see that market share is rising in Latin America.

Well, the first thing we do as Nissan is respect government decisions, obviously, and we comply with them. In any case, what we see is that market volume is going to drop by about half. We understand this is a temporary restriction, but we hope it changes quickly because market laws are what they are — they're sacred. Obviously, customers can wait on a vehicle for a while, but then they need to replace their vehicle fleet. Ecuador is a country that moves with road transportation. We don't have trains, we don't have ships. So the automotive sector — trucks, buses — is critical for the country's development. So probably for a time, we understand what's happening, the market will contract, but then it has to return to normalcy. Ecuador, in practice, I tell you, should be a market of 200,000 units. There's no reason why a market like Ecuador with 14 to 15 million inhabitants shouldn't be selling what Peru sells, what in proportion Colombia sells, what Chile sells. For reference, Chile sells 300,000 units with a population of about 18 million. So Ecuador has a lot of potential to develop. Obviously, roads need to be developed as they're being done, other means of mass transportation in cities need to be developed, etc. But Ecuador is going up, and we obviously hope to be part of that country's development.

Well, in general, I would say for all car dealers. I'm still reviewing — I don't have the complete analysis of the implications of this yet — but what I saw is that basically there's a cut in quotas, or an establishment of quotas for the different brands. I'll be visiting Ecuador in the coming days to analyze with my distributor, with CONASA, what's happening. But in any case, something customers can be sure of is that if we launch a product, we back it with support, with service, with quality, with spare parts, etc. So they can be calm that our after-sales service will be solid, that we'll be well represented, that they have a good vehicle and a good brand representative.

Well, we have an aggressive plan. Every few weeks we're launching a product somewhere in the globe. This is part of a chain of launches, a product strategy. We've launched, as I mentioned, Sentra, Altima, Qashqai, X-Trail in different markets. We've had practically 24 months of uninterrupted launches. So we have more surprises. At this moment I'm not going to tell you what's coming, but there are many products we're going to continue launching in the region.

Don Walter, a hug to my Ecuadorian friends. Thank you for this interview, and well, thank you very much. See you later.