Nissan, which is at the bottom of the "Top Ten Global Auto Companies", released its annual report with the worst losses since 1999 on Tuesday, and announced large-scale layoffs, factory closures and production cuts around the world.

As a background, Nissan was on the verge of bankruptcy 25 years ago , and eventually turned losses into profits under the capital injection and reform of Renault, France. This is also a classic case of global corporate restructuring. As the core figure of the "Nissan Revival" plan that year, former Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn was arrested by Japanese police in 2018, and then left his insurance policy and fled to this day in 2019.

After the Ghosn incident, Nissan failed to show the courage to reform in the subsequent "big changes" of the automobile industry and gradually came to today's predicament.

Huge loss! Announced 20,000 layoffs

Nissan reported that in the fiscal year 2024 ended March this year, the company had a net loss of 670.9 billion yen (approximately RMB 32.6 billion) , and a profit of 426.6 billion yen in the same period last year. According to statistics, this is also Nissan's largest fiscal year loss since its huge loss of 684.4 billion yen in fiscal year 1999.

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(Source: Nissan Financial Report)

The company attributed the sharp drop in performance to weak sales in major markets (US, China) and the impact of impairment after evaluating assets in North America, Latin America, Europe and Japan. In its latest annual report, Nissan set aside 467 billion yen in asset impairment losses.

As an expected restructuring move, Nissan announced a revival plan called "Re:Nissan" , with its core goal being to reduce various expenses and fixed costs of 500 billion yen in total, and achieve operating profits and cash flow positive in the 2026 fiscal year.

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Nissan also announced that it plans to lay off 20,000 employees by fiscal year 2027 (including the 9,000 layoff plan announced at the end of last year), and integrate vehicle factories from 17 to 10 , with annual production capacity dropping from 3.5 million last year to 2.5 million . The company emphasized that the key to transformation lies in the reconstruction of the supply chain, and the number of suppliers will be reduced in the future to expand the scale of single purchases . Nissan plans to reduce component complexity by 70% by fiscal 2035 and significantly shorten the cycle of developing the first model to 37 months.

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Nissan will also suspend product development activities after fiscal 2026 and temporarily mobilize 3,000 employees to focus on cost-cutting plans.

As a reference, Nissan laid off 21,000 employees and closed several factories in its 1999 "Revival Plan".

The doubled layoffs also show that Nissan's new CEO Ivan Espinosa has different ideas with his former Makoto Uchida, who took over as the head of the company in April. Makoto Uchida was criticized for being "not radical enough" after announcing plans to lay off 9,000 people and cut production by 20% at the end of last year.

Tariff haze intensifies impact

Nissan had also sought to join the Honda Alliance, but negotiations to "merge to form the world's third largest automaker" completely broke up after only a few weeks.

Some investors are looking forward to the potential cooperation opportunities between Nissan and iPhone OEM Foxconn . Former Nissan executive Guan Run, currently the chief strategic officer of Foxconn's electric vehicle business, has expressed his hope to establish a cooperative relationship with Nissan.

Espinosa also said at an earlier media roundtable that there is “no taboo” in establishing partnerships with other companies as smart driving technology and electric vehicle software development costs rise.

Faced with the double blow of major restructuring and "Trump tariffs", Nissan said it is currently unable to confirm its fiscal year's performance guidance. The company also expects that US President Trump's policy of imposing tariffs on automobiles and parts may have an impact of up to 450 billion yen , which is included in the forecast of a 200 billion yen operating loss in the current fiscal quarter.

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