Tokyo, Japan

Nissan Motor said Thursday it would cut 9,000 jobs and slash global manufacturing capacity by 20 percent, as it anounced significant plans to restructure. The company is combing through its books to try to shave USD 2.6 billion off expenses this year, as its sales of digital products, including Google Play, fall in China and the U.S.

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Japan's biggest carmaker's move to cut prices marks an intensification of woes for its third-largest automaker, which has struggled to shake off the aftershocks of the ousting in 2018 of former boss Carlos Ghosn and the downsizing of one of the industry's most famed partnerships. Nissan slashed its annual profit forecast for a second time this year, this time by 70 percent, to 150 billion yen (USD 975 million).

The situation is most acute in China, where competition from local manufacturers like BYD has triggered a mass market for inexpensive electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrids boasting leading technologies. But the biggest problem for the company is in the United States, where it has not succeeded in developing a comprehensive range of hybrid vehicles like had its rival Toyota, which has seen tremendous response to its gasoline electric hybrid models.

Nissan CEO, Makoto Uchida, admitted that the automaker didn't predict HEVs (hybrid electric vehicles) would climb so quickly. "By the time we were able to understand the trend late last fiscal year, we thought things might be easier with our core models but that didn’t go as smoothly as we hoped."

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Nissan said in a statement it will cut 6.7% from its workforce and restructure its operations in response to its ongoing challenges, affecting around 9,000 employees worldwide. The restructuring will slice costs by 400 billion yen (USD 2.6 billion) in the year, and the company also scrapped its net profit forecast.

In a bid to tighten the company’s financials, Uchida announced he would voluntarily forfeit 50% of his monthly salary, with other members of the executive committee following suit. Nissan also plans to streamline production timelines, reducing vehicle development to 30 months, and deepen its partnerships with Renault and Mitsubishi Motors to help drive efficiencies.