Poor Infiniti decidedly did not have a stellar year last year. Abysmal sales figures reports from October led us to declare the automaker was getting creamed. And after viewing its recently published, overall 2019 sales figures, we can unilaterally conclude that, yes, Infiniti got creamed.
Last year, Infiniti only managed to sell 117,708 cars, down from 149,280 in 2018, according to a company press release that also highlights the brand’s December 2019 sales. Bravely, as though grasping desperately for a silver lining, it reports, “... the QX80 full-size luxury sport utility vehicle [had] its best month ever, with deliveries of 2,580, a 9 percent increase.”
True, the luxury SUV segment saw very strong sales during the last few months of 2019, so no doubt Infiniti was riding that wave. But if we zoom out just a bit and examine the bigger picture, things become very bleak, very fast. Every single one of Infiniti’s cars sold worse in 2019 than in 2018.
Every. Single. One.
Look at all those minus signs! Negative percent changes in sales of the Q50, Q60, Q70, QX30, QX50, QX60, and QX80—coincidentally, also cars I cannot for the life of me accurately bring to mind, no matter how hard I try. I shudder to think of what would happen to me if I brought this report card home to my mother. She’d go straight for the drawer with the mahjong ruler.
A few things undoubtedly contributed to this. First, there’s Infiniti’s seeming inability to put up, like, ever. Second, former chairman and CEO of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance Carlos Ghosn’s 2018 arrest probably didn’t do Infiniti any favors. Then, after bad sales and Brexit uncertainties, Infiniti bounced from western Europe altogether.
Maybe 2020 will see Infiniti’s big comeback tour, the one where the brand will embark on its journey to go all-electric or hybrid by 2021. Or maybe Nissan will decide to pull a 2013 and cancel Infiniti for good. The numbers are certainly there to support this path.