Nissan’s Urvan overtakes Toyota’s Hi Ace as topnotcher in van sales

Nissan’s Urvan has overtaken market leader Toyota’s Hi Ace in terms of van sales last year, a ranking official said yesterday.

In an interview Beth Lee, senior vice president for marketing of Universal Motors Corp (UMC), local distributor of Nissan, said the Urvan has outsold the Hi Ace. Urvan has led the van sales as it accounted for 25 percent of the market share while Toyota’s Hi Ace closely followed at 24 percent.

"Hopefully we will have higher sales this year," Lee said. "There is a need for a no frills van. It has everything you need and nothing of those that you don’t need," she added.

According to Lee, the increased demand for the Urvan came from their efforts to market the vehicle as a business tool. Lee explained that they have initiated the P99,000 downpayment to Urvan to make it more affordable to more people.

"Before our target was classes A and B, but now we have expanded our target to class C," Lee noted. "We can now bridge the gap as we touch the C segment," she added. She said with the lower down payment, it is easier for businessmen to form a group to put up P99,000  seed capital. "The monthly is no longer a problem. They can get it from the profits," she said.

With last year’s launch of their project to help Urvan buyers sharpen their entrepreneurial skills, Lee said the sales of their Urvan doubled. "The response was overwhelming," she noted.

In fact, she said for the first nine months of their project they received 10,000 text inquiries. "These are our future customers," she said. As of March 2006, she said they sold 1,700 vans.

Lee said the Urvan is the biggest selling vehicle of the brand as it accounts for 50 percent of total sales of Nissan.

Also yesterday, UMC launched the Asenso Negosyo Academy which aims to help people who want to enter businesses hone their entrepreneurial skills. The program is open to all Urvan buyers.