Nissan’s Infiniti to expand mainland dealer network

Roland Kruger, president of Infinity. A challenge facing automakers in China is the slowing rate of growth, which will intensify the scrutiny on future investments, said Kruege

Nissan Motor Co.’s Infiniti premium brand plans to increase the number of dealerships it has in China by about 40 percent this year, with room to add more outlets in future, said its new brand chief.
Infiniti will have 110 to 120 dealerships in China by the end of this year, up from about 85 currently, said Roland Krueger, a former BMW executive who was hired by Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn last year to head the brand.
“I believe that speed counts,” Krueger said in an interview in Shanghai ahead of the city’s auto show starting next week. “We need to be aware the developments especially in China are very, very fast.”
Nissan is stepping up competition with Volkswagen AG’s Audi, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz as the Japanese automaker aims to capture 10 percent of the global market for premium cars by 2020. The company started to make its premium marque in China with a local partner last year, helping Infiniti’s global sales surge to a record in the January-March quarter.
A challenge facing automakers in China is the slowing rate of growth, which will intensify the scrutiny on future investments, said Krueger. Even so, Infiniti has to be “very fast” in all aspects of its operations including partnership with the dealers in order to keep up and even stay ahead of market developments in the country, he said. Jie Ma and Yukiko Hagiwara, Bloomberg