Nissan Titan edges closer to Australia as company shake-up boosts Ram 1500 and Chevrolet Silverado rival's chances

The Nissan Titan’s chances of reaching Australia have just had their biggest boost yet, with the redrawing of the company’s global geographic regional structures that gives the local outfit much more leverage in the vehicles it desires.

Commencing from October 1, 2020, the regional shake-up now puts Australia with other like-minded markets like Europe and the United Kingdom, South Africa and the Middle East, quadrupling the volume potential of right-hand-drive (RHD) developments for models like the Titan.

While this still does not guarantee the local release of Nissan’s full-size pick-up truck answer to the Chevrolet Silverado, Ford F-150 and Ram 1500, it gives Nissan Australia a considerably more powerful voice within the organisation when RHD countries like South Africa and the UK are also piping in.

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Speaking to CarsGuide at the launch of the MY21 Navara in Melbourne last week, Nissan Australia managing director Stephen Lester revealed that the greater volumes that the new Africa, Middle East, India, Europe and Oceania (AMIEO) group provides compared to the old Asia and Oceania (A&O) set-up is great news for the Titan’s chances of reaching Australia.

“We haven’t actually opened up the specific (Titan) dialogue with them (yet)," he said. “But when you think about the South African market and the Middle Eastern markets, there are just probably more markets that it could be applicable for, and perhaps a bigger business case that could be put together to help support it.

“Now that we have done the regional transition, we hope with our alignment with our Middle Eastern colleagues that we’ve got a little bit more of a formidable group, because one of our challenges we had with the A&O region set-up alone was that was nobody else was with us.”

Previously, with Australia and Thailand the only big RHD markets in the old regional set-up, the number of annual vehicle sales was capped to about 130,000 units annually, but that has now opened to over one million sales per year all-up within the AMIEO region.   

“It wasn’t that we weren’t supported, our chairman was very supportive… it’s just that it was small volumes,” Mr Lester said. “So, it was always tough to get that market voice when it’s not a massive number to come through.

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“Now, with the group that we’ve got in our new region, there’s still potential to pick (Titan) up, absolutely.”

Mr Lester added that the upshot of the COVID-19 pandemic had halted discussions about Titan this year, and while these haven’t yet commenced, exploring a truck to sit above the Navara is still very much on Nissan Australia’s agenda.

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As previously reported, he remains open to an Australian right-hand-drive conversion set-up, as per the Ram and Chevrolet trucks.

The Titan has recently been upgraded with a 298kW/580Nm 5.6-litre V8.