Nissan Australia boss says 2026 will be the brand’s nadir, ahead of an expected return to growth

The new boss of Nissan in Australia has conceded he’s arriving while the Japanese brand is at a low ebb, but says it will only grow from here.

In an exclusive interview with CarExpert which will be published this Sunday, Nissan Oceania managing director Steve Milette said he plans to return the brand to growth, but this won’t happen until next year.

“We will be going back into growth mode,” he said. “2026 is the low point, and it then increases from there on in, based on, as far as we know it, future product introductions into the market, continued shift into hybrids and other forms.

“And we think Nissan can be a very strong brand in this market,” he added.

To achieve this growth, Nissan will expand the local X-Trail mid-size SUV lineup with front-wheel drive e-Power hybrid variants plus a more rugged-looking Rock Creek grade, all of which are due on sale here in September.

Also due in September is the refreshed Nissan Z sports coupe, which will bring a new manual Nismo variant.

Following this, customer deliveries of the long-awaited Y63 Patrol off-road SUV are finally set to commence in the first quarter of 2027.

While Nissan hasn’t confirmed any further new model introductions for Australia, the local launch of the Frontier Pro plug-in hybrid dual-cab ute – developed as part of the company's joint venture with Chinese automaker Dongfeng – has reportedly been confirmed to dealers, and examples have been spied testing locally.

Nissan Australia has also previously put its hand up for a production version of the plug-in hybrid Terrano body-on-frame SUV concept revealed in April.

Earlier this year, Nissan corporate executive for family, product and component strategy, Richard Candler, indicated the large NX8 crossover SUV could also come here.

Like the Frontier Pro, the NX8 was co-developed with Dongfeng, but is instead available as either an electric vehicle (EV) or extended-range electric vehicle (EREV). Should it be confirmed for this market, it could reach Australia by the end of 2027.

Other Chinese models that could come here include the mid-size N7 electric sedan.

“As a right-hand drive market, we're there for the future investments of all those products that you've seen in China. At least our hands are up; whether we get them or not, that remains to be confirmed,” said Mr Milette.

But Nissan Australia will continue to tap more than just its Chinese operations for new-model introductions.

It has confirmed it's looking at the Kicks, a light SUV of which a second generation was recently launched in Japan.

Nissan late last year also filed to trademark the Arizon and Tekton nameplates in Australia. While the former has yet to appear on a production Nissan model globally, the Tekton name debuted last month on a lightly restyled version of the Dacia/Renault Duster built in India.

The Japanese brand has gaps to fill in its Australian lineup.

It axed two crossover SUVs earlier this year – the light Juke and the large, three-row Pathfinder – and indefinitely postponed the release of the new second-generation Leaf crossover.

These decisions were announced just weeks before Mr Milette took over as Nissan Oceania managing director on April 1, 2026. He has been with Nissan since 2017, and served as the boss of Nissan Canada for five years.

His arrival also comes after Nissan fell out of the top 10 best-selling brands in 2025.

Nissan reached a high watermark of 79,747 sales in Australia in 2012, finishing sixth overall among new-vehicle brands and holding 7.2 per cent of the market.

However, its sales have been trending downwards since then, apart from a bump in 2023 and 2024 on the back of redesigned models making their way here.

In 2024, Nissan finished in ninth place, before dropping to 12th place in 2025 with 35,511 sales and a 2.9 per cent market share.

To the end of July, Nissan has delivered 15,445 vehicles so far this year, down 33.7 per cent on the same period last year.

The Navara is down 48.8 per cent to 2612 units, though its slump may be attributable as much to the changeover between generations as its slimmed-down model lineup.

Likewise, the Qashqai small SUV was recently updated but is down a nevertheless worrying 73.5 per cent to 824 units.

Indeed, every Nissan that was on sale from January to July in 2025 is down by double digits across the same period this year. That includes the brand’s best-seller, the X-Trail, which had the smallest decline – a 15.1 per cent drop, to 8189 units.

You can read our full interview with Nissan Oceania managing director Steve Milette on Sunday, August 9.

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