Nissan is showing two very different faces in its latest business numbers.
On one side, there are encouraging signs. Japan is growing. The United States is growing. Nissan’s exports from Japan are also up.
On the other, the global numbers remain difficult to ignore.
According to Nissan Motor Co.’s July 2026 production, sales and export report, the Japanese automaker sold 219,495 vehicles worldwide during July, a 16.5% decline compared with July 2025. Global production was also down, with 188,130 vehicles built, representing a 15.5% year-on-year decline.
That makes July an interesting month for Nissan: there are markets where the company is beginning to regain momentum, but there is still a considerable gap between those individual successes and the company’s overall global performance.
“Nissan’s official July 2026 production, sales and export report” (https://reference-url-citation.invalid/0)
Japan Is Moving in the Right Direction
Perhaps the clearest positive in Nissan’s July figures comes from its home market.
Japanese sales increased 3.6% year over year, reaching 35,872 vehicles when passenger cars, commercial vehicles and kei cars are included.
The improvement was helped by interest in newer products, particularly the Kicks and Elgrand.
Passenger-car registrations were up 5.4%, while kei-car sales increased 0.9%.
For Nissan, that matters because Japan is more than simply another market. It is the company’s home base and an important indicator of whether its product strategy is beginning to reconnect with customers.
But there is another important detail buried inside the numbers: commercial-vehicle sales in Japan fell 17.9% during July. So the improvement isn’t uniform across the entire Japanese portfolio.
America Remains One of Nissan’s Bright Spots
The United States delivered another piece of relatively encouraging news.
Nissan sold 75,926 vehicles in the U.S. during July, an increase of 2.3% from the same month a year earlier.
The company specifically pointed toward its localization strategy and continued demand for products such as the Rogue.
The U.S. performance is particularly significant because Nissan’s North American operation remains one of the largest components of its global business. While 2.3% isn’t an explosive increase, it does stand in sharp contrast to the company’s overall global decline.
North America as a whole, however, was down 1.5%, largely because Canada continued to struggle. Canadian sales fell 31.6%, while Mexican sales slipped 0.8%.
So once again, Nissan’s performance depends heavily on which market we are looking at.
China Is the Problem Nissan Cannot Ignore
If there is one figure that immediately changes the tone of Nissan’s July report, it is China.
Nissan sold 23,677 vehicles in China during July, a staggering 58.7% decline year over year.
For the April–July period, Chinese sales were down 39.2%.
This isn’t a small market fluctuation. China is undergoing an enormous transformation toward new-energy vehicles, with domestic manufacturers competing aggressively on price, technology, software and electrification.
Nissan acknowledges that the Chinese market environment remains challenging and says it is accelerating its transition toward new-energy vehicles, including products such as the NX8.
That transition will be critical.
The problem for Nissan isn’t simply selling fewer conventional vehicles in China. It is that the market is changing quickly, meaning automakers have to compete in an environment where the definition of a competitive car is increasingly being shaped by electrification, software and locally developed technology.
Europe Is Also Down
Europe didn’t experience China’s level of decline, but Nissan’s numbers there aren’t particularly encouraging either.
July European sales fell 6.0%, to 21,472 vehicles.
The April–July total was down 12.6% compared with the same period in 2025.
That puts pressure on Nissan to make its European product strategy work at a time when the region’s automotive market is simultaneously dealing with electrification, emissions requirements, changing consumer demand and increasingly aggressive competition from both established manufacturers and newer Chinese brands.
Production Tells Another Story
Nissan produced 188,130 vehicles globally in July, down 15.5% year over year.
But once again, the regional breakdown is revealing.
Japanese production actually increased 7.2%, reaching 55,101 vehicles.
U.S. production rose an impressive 34.2%, reaching 38,622 vehicles.
Then come the declines.
Mexico fell 18.9%, the United Kingdom was down 6.1%, and China plunged 66.9%.
Nissan’s overseas production was consequently down 22.3% overall.
The contrast between Japan and the United States on one side and China and Mexico on the other shows just how uneven Nissan’s manufacturing landscape has become.
Exports From Japan Are Surprisingly Strong
There is, however, another number worth paying attention to.
Nissan exported 31,222 vehicles from Japan in July, an increase of 6.5% year over year.
Exports to North America increased 20.8%, while exports to other markets increased 15.3%.
Europe was the exception, with exports from Japan falling 71.7%.
For the April–July period, Nissan’s total exports from Japan reached 110,862 vehicles, up 6.9% from the corresponding period a year earlier.
That tells us something important: Nissan’s Japanese manufacturing operations aren’t simply shrinking alongside the company’s global sales decline. In certain areas, Japan is becoming more productive and more relevant as an export base.
So, Where Does Nissan Actually Stand?
The July numbers don’t provide a simple “Nissan is recovering” or “Nissan is collapsing” story.
They provide something more complicated.
Japan: up 3.6% in sales.
United States: up 2.3%.
Global sales: down 16.5%.
Global production: down 15.5%.
China: down 58.7%.
Europe: down 6.0%.
Japan production: up 7.2%.
Exports from Japan: up 6.5%.
And that’s perhaps the most interesting part of Nissan’s current situation.
The company clearly has areas where its products are connecting with customers. But those gains are currently being overwhelmed by much larger declines elsewhere.
Nissan’s strategy therefore isn’t simply about selling more cars. It is about determining which cars, in which markets, and built where can give the company sustainable growth.
The Bigger Nissan Story
Nissan has spent the past few years trying to reshape itself amid a rapidly changing global automotive industry.
The company is dealing with the same fundamental pressures facing much of the industry — electrification, Chinese competition, changing consumer preferences, manufacturing costs and increasingly localized markets — but its July figures demonstrate that the pressure isn’t distributed evenly.
The United States and Japan offer evidence that Nissan still has products capable of generating growth.
China demonstrates how quickly an established global manufacturer can lose ground when the market around it changes faster than its product strategy.
And production figures suggest Nissan is already adjusting where it builds vehicles and how those vehicles are distributed.
The next question is whether the company’s newer products can turn those isolated areas of growth into something broader.
For now, Nissan’s July report reads less like a turnaround completed and more like a turnaround still under construction.
There are green shoots.
There are also some very large problems.
And China, in particular, is going to be difficult to overlook.
