Guy Legend

Infiniti is still very new to western Europe and sales are up 91% from the previous year. There's no "struggling" going on here besides what one would expect for a new luxury brand launching in a very old and entrenched luxury market.

LexFather

Their original sales target was 8-10k units a year. So up "91%" to 2,500 units is still far short of the target, thus the article mentioning their struggles.

Now if they can keep expanding at a 91% growth rate year over year they will be fine in a couple of years.

DustinV

The same thing can be said about the United States - from a European perspective. "Based on the movies...90% of the cars are oversized junk...Ford Excursions, bloated, fat and ugly..."

Keep in mind that I'm an American who happens to live and work here. Most Europeans can't understand why we need to drive around in oversized, overpowered and inefficient cars. A clash of different cultures.



Infiniti products do poorly here mainly because of thin dealer networks, poor gas mileage, a small unbalanced lineup with poor practicality and the fact that the brand carries no cache here. When the average European goes shopping for a premium brand they expect the brand to stand for something. Infiniti doesn't have an "image" to begin with in Europe. So why should someone drop a lot of money on a car that is fast and fully loaded, but literally lacks an identity (in terms of branding)?

Sulu

That is the responsibility of a marketing expert: establish a brand image for a product line.

Och

iTrader: (3)

When I was in paris, I saw a bunch of Infiniti FX, but it was the only Infiniti I saw. Like I said, I believe they are some sort of fleet vehicle, because most of the ones that I was were at the airport parking lot. I have no idea if they were diesels.

I saw very very few Japanese and Korean vehicles. I think I only saw one Honda and one Nissan. Almost all of the Toyotas that I saw were Priiiiiii, and only Lexiiiii I saw were hybrids - RX and LS. I saw like 4 or 5 LS600h in one day - you don't see that many in NYC in a month. I think the CT-h should do well in Europe.

And like someone else pointed out, most other cars over there are tinny diesel junk. The air quality in the city and on the highways is terrible, the diesel stench is everywhere. They still have a bunch of old tech diesels that aren't clean like the bluetecs that we have in USA.

Blackraven

Infiniti were supposed to launch in Japan sometime this year......but I dunno what happened. Maybe they might plan a launch though it's unconfirmed when.

Anyways, as mentioned by others, it's also important to know that Infiniti is a relatively newcomer here. Lexus is facing a few difficulties in Europe but they got to a good level of recognition over time.

Maybe Infiniti just needs more time as well.