We would now like to start the presentation of the financial results for the first half of fiscal year 2022. Thank you for joining us today. We appreciate your kind participation. With regard to the explanation meeting, with the remote system, as well as live distribution for the presentation today. First, I would like to introduce the attendees from our side. President and CEO, Mr. Makoto Uchida. COO, Mr. Ashwani Gupta. CFO, Mr. Stephen Ma. We look forward to your kind cooperation. We invite Mr. Uchida to say a few words. Mr. Uchida, the floor is yours.
Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us today. First, COO Gupta will present the results for the first half of the fiscal year, followed by my presentation of the outlook for the full fiscal year. Before I begin, I would like to say a few words. Global challenges, including semiconductor supply shortage, supply chain disruption, rising energy costs, and raw material prices triggered by COVID-19 pandemic are impacting our business more significantly than our initial expectation. Despite these challenges, Nissan's performance is recovering, and we are delivering results that exceed our business plan. We believe this is an indication that Nissan NEXT initiatives are bearing fruit and improving Nissan's business.
Although the severe business environment is still continuing, the entire company will continue to work together as one team on Nissan NEXT to build a solid business foundation for future growth. COO Gupta will now explain the results for the first half of the current fiscal year. Gupta-san, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Uchida-san. Hello, everyone. I would like to add my welcome to Nissan's first half and second quarter results for the period ending September 30, 2022. First of all, I would like to reiterate that our number one priority is to deliver cars to our customer at the earliest. On behalf of Nissan, I extend our sincere apologies to any customers patiently awaiting for delivery of our new vehicles. We are doing our utmost every day to overcome the disruption and delay caused by the global semiconductor shortage and pressures on automotive supply chains. While these difficult conditions may persist and cause delays in delivery timing, we are making company-wide efforts around the world to increase our production and complete deliveries as soon as possible. I would like to express my thanks to all our employees, suppliers, partners, and dealers.
Their hard work and dedication enabled Nissan to navigate extremely challenging times. In addition, we are grateful for the large number of orders we have received for our latest offerings, including Nissan Ariya, Sakura, Z, Qashqai, and X-Trail. As Uchida-san said, despite the volatile environment, Nissan continues to deliver on our plans and have shown strong commitment to our business culture, driving value to our stakeholders. Please allow me to take you through our latest results. I will explain the key metrics for the volume and unit sales during the latest quarter. Overall, Nissan has put our production on the road to recovery in most of our markets globally. As a result, we expect retail sales to recover soon.
Globally, excluding China, the production volumes rose by 13.6% in the second quarter to 563,000 units as we have managed supply chain and COVID disruptions, and output has started to normalize. This improvement was offset by the production challenges in China, where the output fell 23.5% to 242,000 units due to continued semiconductor shortages, but most important, impact of the COVID lockdowns in China. As a result, overall production was flat year-on-year at 806,000 units. This resulted in a slight decline of 0.9% year-on-year to 1.618 million units for the first half of fiscal year 2022. Year-on-year retail sales fell 21.4% to 750,000 units during the second quarter of FY 2022. This is primarily due to the difference in inventory availability.
In transit and seasonal inventory in the last two weeks of September were important factors as well to convert into the retail sales, which definitely is being converted in the month of October. Export model production during this period, such as X-Trail for Europe, Ariya for the United States, will be reflected in sales for the subsequent quarters as shipments are completed. The sharpest decline was in China, where the sales fell by 30.2% to 257,000 units, mainly driven by COVID lockdown and supply shortages. In contrast, sales in our home market of Japan rose 9.8% amid encouraging demand for new models and higher production levels. In North America, our retail sales were down 25.4% to 204,000 and down by 20.9% in Europe to 64,000 as inventory shortages.
Sales in other markets were down by 15.1% to 118,000 units. Taken together, global unit sales for the first half were 21.6% lower at 1.569 million vehicles. The next two slides show our key financial performance indicators on both the China JV proportionate basis and equity basis for the second quarter and the first half. On an equity basis, which excludes contribution from our China joint venture operations, our net revenues for the second quarter rose by 30% to JPY 2.52 trillion from JPY 1.94 trillion in the same period of 2021. On the same basis, operating profit for the period was JPY 91.7 billion with an operating margin of 3.6%.
For the second quarter, the net income was JPY 17.4 billion. The decline versus previous year can be explained by one-time loss from the exit from Russian market this year and impact of COVID lockdowns. Due to these factors, our net income was slightly lower than the prior year. Our automotive free cash flow significantly improved in the second quarter to a positive JPY 206.6 billion. Our net cash for the automotive business was also significantly increased to JPY 1.04 trillion. On a proportionate basis, which includes our China operations, our net revenue for the second quarter rose to JPY 2.78 trillion from JPY 2.28 trillion last year. Operating profit under this measure reached JPY 113.7 billion for the quarter, representing an operating margin of 4.1%.
In the second quarter, automotive free cash flow improved to JPY 184.8 billion versus a negative JPY 169.9 billion in the prior year. Net cash for the automotive business reached JPY 1.56 trillion on this basis. Nissan also continues to maintain strong levels of liquidity. The key highlight of this quarter is that for the first time in the last three years, Nissan's automotive profit, including inter-segment eliminations, became positive. The challenge is to continue in the following quarters to strengthen the sustainability of our core business. The next slide highlights our key financial indicators for the first half.
On an equity basis, which excludes contribution from our China JV operations, our net revenue for the first half rose to JPY 4.66 trillion from JPY 3.95 trillion in the same period of 2021. On the same basis, operating profit for the period was JPY 156.6 billion with an operating margin of 3.4%. For the half, net income was JPY 64.5 billion. As I previously mentioned for the second quarter, the decline versus the previous year can be explained by the one-time loss from the exit from the Russian market this year. In addition, last year, there was one-time gain from the sale of Daimler shares. Excluding the one-time gain and loss, our net income was almost flat from the prior year.
Free cash flow for the automotive business was JPY -98 billion for the first half. As previously noted, our free cash flow significantly improved in the second quarter to JPY 206.6 billion. However, it was not enough to cover the negative free cash flow in the first quarter, which was due to low production. We expect our free cash flow to continue to recover in the second half of this fiscal year. On a proportionate basis, which includes our China operations, our net revenue for the first half rose to JPY 5.26 trillion from JPY 4.6 trillion last year. Operating profit under this measure reached JPY 212.6 billion for the first half, representing an operating margin of 4%.
Automotive free cash flow was JPY -115.7 billion for the first half. Net cash for the automotive business reached JPY 1.56 trillion on this basis. Now let's look at our H1 financial performance. This is the income statement for the six months ending September 30, 2022, on an equity basis, which excludes contribution from our China JV operations. Net revenue increased by JPY 715.3 billion from the previous year to JPY 4.66 trillion. Net revenue increased year-on-year despite the decrease in sales volume, which was primarily driven by improvement in net revenue per unit, as well as the weakening of the yen.
Operating profit increased by JPY 17.5 billion from the prior year to JPY 156.6 billion, representing an operating margin of 3.4%. I will explain about the variance on the next slide. Net income for the first half was JPY 64.5 billion. The decrease from the previous year was primarily due to one-time factors, such as sale of Daimler shares and exit from Russian market. Turning now to the operating profit variance analysis. For the first half, this slide shows the variance factors from first half of last year to this year. Foreign exchange had a positive impact of JPY 93.9 billion, primarily due to the strong US dollar as tailwind, but also headwind in other currencies, like the Mexican peso and Chinese yuan.
The increase in raw material prices had a negative impact of JPY 122.8 billion, primarily driven by price hikes in materials such as steel, aluminum, and plastics. Sales performance had a positive impact of JPY 190.6 billion. The continued improvement in quality of sales was the biggest contributing factor with the decrease in incentives, as well as improvement in the pricing with value content like ProPILOT, e-4ORCE, and connected services. Monozukuri performance had a negative impact of JPY 24.7 billion, primarily driven by cost inflation in manufacturing and logistics. Other items deteriorated by JPY 119.5 billion from the previous year. Part of this was versus one-time gains of JPY 35 billion last year from the release of credit loss provisions and increase in used car prices.
We were also impacted by factors such as increase in cost for regulatory and product enrichments, profit decline in sales finance business due to the decrease in assets, increased administrative expenses, and other items. Turning to the operational highlights of the current year. Despite facing volatile uncertainties such as inflation, Forex, and raw material cost, Nissan is taking action to build sustainable momentum across our business. We are closely monitoring our operations and external factors to remain agile. As lockdowns have continued in China, our total production has been unstable and remains uncertain looking ahead. While uncertain conditions may persist, we have taken effective steps to contract the impact of semiconductor shortages and recover production during this fiscal year. Nissan has made encouraging progress with our dual supplier sourcing strategy between alternative and standard IC chips.
As an example, for one of the major component that caused continuous shortages in fiscal 2020, 2021 , we have more than doubled the supply through usage of alternative chips. Thanks to these efforts, we expect to increase our production further during the second half of fiscal year 2022, and we aim to grow our business sustainably amid unprecedented headwinds. Nissan NEXT is on the right trajectory driven by the three pillars of rationalization, prioritization and focus, and sow seeds for the future with a demonstrable progress of our electrification strategy. With both zero emission and e-POWER equipped vehicles as the key drivers, our total global sales for the electrified vehicles has reached 13% for the quarter.
Our home market of Japan is the leading example globally of accelerating sales across our compelling zero-emission and e-POWER model range, with 52% of our sales consisting of electrified vehicles during the quarter. This is a result of our customer accepting the value of products from our wide offerings, starting from Kei cars to the luxury crossovers. With that, I will hand over to Uchida-san to discuss about our outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year. Uchida-san.
Thank you, Ashwani.
Turning now to our outlook for the fiscal year 2022. During the first half of the fiscal year, the automotive industry continued to face a challenging business environment due to the semiconductor supply shortage and the impact of the China lockdown, and our production and sales were lower than expected. The supply chain situation is improving, and we expect our global sales volume in the second half to increase significantly by 35.8% from the first half. However, the pace of recovery continues to be slower than our initial expectations. As a result, we are lowering our global sales volume forecast from 4 million units to 3.7 million units. We will continue to work on improving the quality of sales and optimize our operation by closely monitoring the situation. This is the revised full-year forecast for fiscal year 2022 on the equity method basis.
Despite the decrease in sales volume for the fiscal year, we have revised upward the forecast for net sales to JPY 10.9 trillion, operating profit to JPY 360 billion, which represents an operating profit margin of 3.3%. The exchange rate assumptions for the current fiscal year have been revised from 120 yen to 135 yen for the US dollar and from 130 yen to 137 yen for the euro. The upward revision for revenue and operating profit is not only due to the depreciation in the yen, but also due to the increase in net revenue per unit resulting from our initiatives to improve quality of sales, including lower sales incentives and pricing revisions.
Through these efforts, this is expected to offset the negative impacts from the decrease in sales volume and increase in raw material prices. Our forecast for net income is JPY 155 billion. We are only making a small revision as we incorporated an expected extraordinary loss of approximately JPY 100 billion due to the exit from Russian market. Without the one-time impact of Daimler share sale in the previous year and Russia exit this year, our net income would have increased significantly from the prior year. This slide provides the operating profit variance from the previous outlook. Due to the depreciation of the yen, foreign exchange is expected to have an additional positive impact of JPY 125 billion.
As for raw materials and logistics, although prices for some materials have fallen in recent month, overall, they have remained high, and certain items such as battery materials continue to rise sharply, resulting in an expected additional negative impact of JPY 70 billion. Performance is expected to increase by an additional JPY 30 billion due to the positive effects of approximately JPY 145 billion from our sales initiatives such as mix improvement, incentives reduction, and price revisions, which is expected to more than offset the negative effects of JPY 115 billion from the decline in year volume. The investment for new vehicles is expected to continue a positive impact of JPY 25 billion due primarily to the optimization of advertising expenses.
Despite the challenging environment in fiscal year 2022, we are making steady progress to reach the objectives set forth under Nissan NEXT, and we will keep investing for the future. Now I would like to discuss about our dividend policy. Back in May, we said that the interim dividend for the current fiscal year was to be determined due to the volatile external environment. Our production and sales are currently on the recovery trend, and our automotive free cash flow is also improving accordingly. Nissan's automotive free cash flow, which was -JPY 304.6 billion in the first quarter, turned positive in the second quarter to JPY 206.6 billion. However, the total amount of the automotive free cash flow from the first six months remains negative at JPY 98 billion.
Moreover, uncertainty in the external environment remains for the second half, with risks such as a slowdown in the recovery of semiconductor supply, inflation, and rising interest rates. Therefore, we decided to forgo payment of an interim dividend. We are forecasting a year-end dividend of 5 yen per share, but we will consider increasing this amount depending on the earnings and automotive free cash flow for the second half of the fiscal year. Improving shareholder returns continues to be one of our priorities, and we will work to increase the amount to an appropriate level in the future. We appreciate your understanding and support.
Finally, to reiterate, Nissan NEXT is making steady progress despite the difficult environment, and we are confident in our transformation. Regarding new products, which are the core of our business, all our models have been very well received by our customers and influential experts.
In Japan, for example, the Sakura won the Car of the Year award from the Japan Automotive Hall of Fame. In addition, it was announced last week that three Nissan models were selected as the 10 best cars in the Car of the Year Japan and the RJC Car of the Year six best. We believe that these high valuations validate our efforts to continually enhance our products to deliver greater value to our customers, are beginning to bear fruit. In this fiscal year, we are also moving forward with efforts to realize our long-term vision, Nissan Ambition 2030, while firmly committed to business transformation through Nissan NEXT. Under Ambition 2030, we aim to empower mobility and society by providing value that only Nissan can deliver with electrification vehicle intelligence technologies, which are our strength.
The alliance is one of our powerful tools that others do not have in realizing Nissan Ambition 2030. Nissan is currently engaged in discussions around several initiatives as part of the continued efforts to reinforce cooperation in the future of alliance. Why are we talking to Renault now? Let me share with you the background. The first factor is the external environment. A company is expected to assume greater responsibilities for addressing global challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and societal issues. In terms of operations, we must deal with semiconductor supply shortages, rising raw material prices, the sharp yen depreciation that is occurring for the first time in 32 years, a divided world resulting from the geopolitical risks, including the situation in Ukraine and the changing customer mindset.
We see growing awareness of SDGs and disaster prevention, a shift from ownership to sharing and acceleration of digitalization. There is a growing need for more sophisticated technologies such as autonomous driving, connectivity, EV, battery, and software-defined vehicle, SDV, as we adapt to the changes. In this context, we need to have clear priorities and address multiple challenges at the same time while leveraging the alliance and other partnerships. Our alliance has been building a strong track record and trust over many years. Based on this foundation, we are engaged in open and constructive discussions on how to design the alliance in a way that will bring greater benefits to each partner. Regarding the new EV entity which Renault Group presented yesterday at the Capital Markets Day, we are deepening the reflection on how the entity would be beneficial for Nissan and how we would participate.
We will consider to invest in the entity following the ongoing discussions. The most important thing for us is to elevate the alliance to the next stage in order to increase Nissan's competitive edge, enable us to realize Nissan Ambition 2030, and ensure sustainable growth for the company. You may have a lot of questions about the ongoing talks. We kindly ask you for your patience until we reach our conclusion, and we are ready to communicate in due course. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you for your attention. We would then like to take your questions for the Q&A session. Today, we're focusing on financial results, so we'd like to take questions that are focused on the financial results. As for questions outside this topic, we'll take them after these questions are taken.
With regard to the discussion pertaining to the alliance, as Mr. Uchida mentioned, this is an ongoing discussion, so we'll not be able to respond to any questions on this matter. We'd appreciate your kind understanding in advance. We'll take questions about the financial results.
If you have a question, please limit the number of questions to 2 per person, 2 per person. Please click on the virtual hand on the Zoom system. We will call on your name, and if you hear your name, please put on your microphone and camera. When you see your face on the screen, please start asking the question. Thank you. Your face will only be exposed to the people on the internet meeting system. Okay, shall we start with the Q&A session? Starting with NHK. NHK, Yamane-san of NHK, please. Yamane-san, please.
Hello. Yes, this is Yamane. Do you hear me?
Yes, thank you.
Well, depreciation of yen has made a big contribution to the earnings. Looking at the latest Forex, and there may be a volatility, what are the pros and cons of the volatility of the Forex going forward on the earnings?
That is my question.
One by one, shall I answer? Yes. Thank you for your question, Yamane-san. Well, in such a historical weekend, after 32 years, we are seeing this level. In terms of earnings, it has been a positive contribution. In the mid and longer run, and looking at it from the cost, whether it's the materials and the operation, for example, in North America, China, if you look at all these aspects, it doesn't necessarily mean that in the mid and long term, this sharp yen depreciation or even yen appreciation, this volatility of Forex in terms of sustainability of operation will generate a lot of challenges for us. In that sense, we need stable Forex.
That's more preferable for us when we look at the mid and long-term perspective, localization, or if you think about the presence of localization, stable foreign exchange is preferable for us. Okay, next question, please. Yes, go ahead. Exit. Last one. Excuse me. Production is recovering, you said. It has been a contribution of the earnings and the raw material price hike. How will it last? Until when will it last? Maybe it's very difficult to project on the raw material price hike, but how do you see it? Well, I will give you a big picture. Raw material price is increasing compared to the prior year. As I showed you, it's generating more than JPY 300 billion of negative. Well, we are taking many actions, including the usage. We are optimizing or reducing the costs internally.
On the other hand, what will happen going forward, the projection? There are a lot of uncertainties today, so we need to continue carefully monitor the situation, especially when you've got the raw materials, this will have a large impact on the suppliers whom we deal with. Well, together with the suppliers, we are discussing and monitoring the situation and anticipating things. That's the only thing that we can say for now. On this point, we shouldn't be optimistic, and we need to continue carefully monitoring the situation and run the operations accordingly. I would like to hand it over to Ashwani-san, who is heading the operations, if you have anything to elaborate.
Thank you. Thank you for your question. Yeah, it's very important for us to find certainty among all the uncertainties we have. That's why the agility and resilience of the organization is the most important thing. On one side, we have suppliers who are facing the challenges on their cost structure because of increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, increasing raw material prices. On the other side, we have customers, you know, who are paying for the value of the products and are waiting for the new products. There's a very fine balance between what is raw material prices going up, between how much is the productivity we can do to absorb those raw material prices, and how much we can convert into the value which customer is willing to pay.
In our view, I think it will continue in 2023 also, but after that, the things should stabilize. We do believe that it will continue in next one year also. Thank you.
Hai.
Okay, thank you very much. Moving on to the next question. Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Yuzawa-san, please.
Hello. Thank you for the opportunity.
Yes, go ahead.
Yuzawa-san. Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Yuzawa speaking. Thank you for this opportunity. I would like to ask you about the financials to the CFO. One question, Q1 and Q2, if you look at the two quarters, operating profit, looking at the variance analysis, we can see that the sales performance is generating a big contribution, especially in terms of volume and mix. Could you elaborate on this point? What was the drivers really? Could you elaborate on this so that we can have a better understanding? That's my question.
Sure. Thank you, Yuzawa-san. As we had repeatedly said in the last few quarters, I mean, as a company, we have focused on value over volume, and we really focus on quality of sales and discipline in how we sell the vehicles. In the performance reflecting that, I believe you're looking at page seven, where you see the volume mix and selling expense and pricing. That's a big contribution. Within that volume mix, obviously the mix has improved a lot. That's the main positive factor for us. Within the selling expense and pricing, a majority of that is pricing and incentive savings. They demonstrate that our focus on quality of sale and a disciplined approach to focus on value has worked.
So far the customers has reacted very well to all our new models that we launched in all the markets. I believe we haven't even seen the full effect as we have supply constraints. I believe we will see also the continued effect of these value recognition by the customers going forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Stephen Ma-san. Let me continue. Second question. Today, in U.S. especially, the revenue is increasing. Looking at the segment profit by segment, I'm not sure whether this is a direct factor, but the sales finance profit seems to be declining slightly since between April and September. As the interest rate rises, what is the impact on sales finance because of the interest rate hike? What do you see today? What are your thoughts here?
I will take this question as well. Thank you for the question. Obviously, with the recent multiple interest rate hike by the U.S. government, it does have a short-term impact on us. Of course, as consumers face the higher interest rate, they will be shopping around for the most affordable and reasonable interest rate. In the short term, as you can see in appendix also, our penetration therefore has come down a little bit because of that, as the customers are shopping around. Secondly, as you have maybe noticed also sales finance profit as an amount come down slightly, but that's purely a function of our volume in the past has come down a little bit and therefore our portfolio is slightly less.
In terms of performance or profitability of our sales finance business is actually improving. Our profitability margin has actually increased year over year, so performance is good. Right now the interest rate is actually a big main factor in deciding consumer behavior. We think that as interest rate flattens out and slow down a little bit, it will catch up and this timing difference will not last for a long time. We will see our penetration ratio come back up again in the near future. Thank you.
Hi.
Okay, thank you so much. Moving on to the next question. Yomiuri Shimbun, Suzuki-san, please. Suzuki-san, go ahead.
Yes, Yomiuri Shimbun, Suzuki speaking. Do you hear me?
Yes, go ahead.
Yes, thank you for the explanation. Thank you for this opportunity. I have two questions. The first one is about Japanese market pricing approach in Japanese market. Raw material price hike continues, and this has a large impact on your bottom line. Among the vehicle manufacturers, they are talking about price. What's your pricing strategy going forward? That's my first question, pricing strategy. Let me continue the second question.
In the second half of the year and including 2023 fiscal year, what's the sales projection? Looking at the latest results, incentive has been reduced and you are increasing the quality of the sales, I can see it. Going forward, as the shortage of the supplies improve and the backlog is solved, then will you need to spend more incentives at the end of the day? Do you think so? If this happens, can you maintain this high quality of sales? Do you have any measure to maintain this high quality of sales?
Thank you for the question. First, talking about pricing. As we have done in the past, considering customer and based on the customer value, we are determining the pricing. That's the approach we have been taking, and this will not change. If you look at the raw material price hike and other logistics cost rise, according to the market trend, we will take the right measure. That's what we need to look at going forward. On the other hand, quality of sales in Nissan NEXT, this has been one of the big pillars to let the customers understand the value of Nissan products. Every quarter, we can see the results that are generated. Given the tough challenges, we will not change this. We will remain focused, deliver value to the customers rather than pursuing volume. That's what we are doing worldwide.
Once customers acknowledge or recognize the real value of the products, and if they accept it, naturally this will result in higher volume. Naturally, we will look at the market trend and incentive, we will look at the incentive situation market by market. We need to monitor the situation, but our policy remains unchanged. We will continue delivering the value which is acknowledged by the customers so that the customers are ready to pay for. That's what we are going to deliver as attractive cars. If you look at the latest models under Nissan NEXT, these are all appreciated, well-received in the market. As a carmaker, it's good to see our cars are appreciated by customers, and this is resulting in the value that we deliver. We would like to nurture this.
On the other hand, we need to ensure the basically needed volume. That's our approach. Ashwani-san?
Thank you. Thank you, Uchida-san. Now I think pricing strategy is very important. We can make the pricing strategy, but at the end, it is the customer who decide what should be the pricing. So that's what is our core, before we decide the pricing. That's why in many of the markets, especially in Japan, we did not went straight away since last year to increase the prices. First, we are delivering the value, starting with Ariya, with Sakura, and then customer is recognizing, and of course, then we are requesting customer to pay for the value they recognize. For your second question, for the second half of the production, as we mentioned, that first half, our retail sale was 1.69 million.
For the full year, we today refocusing 3.7 million, which means that we will be doing close to 2.1 million sales, which means we have increased in the second half in the sales. If I convert into production, definitely our production is increasing in the second half. That's what we have in the second half. Now, looking at 2023, as I explained before, that we are getting the alternative chips and the dual sourcing, and this will continue and help us in improving 2023. But whether that is going to satisfy all of our demand, I don't think so. Even 2023, we will enter with the supply chain challenges, especially driven by the semiconductors. Now, your last question was about the incentives.
I think Nissan has got three things which are very important to understand that what's behind the sales power and what's behind, what's behind the incentive. The first thing is that how many of the customers recognize Nissan as a great brand driven by the technology. Now what we see that all the 12 products which we have launched in 18 months, the products everywhere from Europe, from Japan, China, United States, every product has been perceived well, and our brand value has improved significantly in this market. Which means what? Which means that we are able to attract the higher household income of customers in United States, but also in Japan, because 50% of our customers of Sakura, of Note Aura are conquest customers who are coming from the different brands because they find Nissan cars to be more attractive.
That's first, that our brand power is increasing. The second is the content of the technology in our cars is increasing, which has got a value, which is increasing the customer-facing transaction price, whether it is United States or Europe or everywhere, and customer is paying for it. These two things are purely driven by our performance. The third factor is incentive, and as we know that 2-3 years before, Nissan used to have much higher than the industry average of incentives in United States. That was our non-performance. Now, when you see for last one year, we are almost close to the industry average, and some months we are better than industry average. First, we are removing that inefficiency in our incentive system from above industry average to the industry average.
As far as we are disciplined, and we are committed to be disciplined. If the volumes are coming back and the industrial incentives are adjusting as per the market, definitely we will adjust, because at the end, in the market, we are here to compete with our competitors to attract more customers. Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay, moving on to the next question. Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun, Nishizawa-san, please.
Thank you. Nishizawa from Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun. Can you hear my voice? Can you hear me? Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun, Nishizawa is my name. Can you hear me?
Yes, we hear you, sir. Please go ahead. We hear you.
Thank you for this opportunity. You talked about this a bit earlier. The raw materials are increasing, and in some of the models, I understand that I think you're moving to increase prices for some of the models. How do you intend to provide return to the component suppliers? How do you intend to provide return to the suppliers? I know that you've been working on such initiatives in the past, but this has been a rapid rise in commodity prices. Energy costs and power costs, are you going to offer some subsidies to tier two suppliers going forward? Any thoughts about this? Thank you very much. I would appreciate your response.
Thank you for your question. With regard to suppliers are very important business partners for us, so we are working to realize growth together with our partners. Despite the very difficult business environment, we have had very close discussions with our suppliers. That being the case, the burden on the part of the suppliers, we are aware of this. From the past, with regard to raw materials, we have taken appropriate response vis-a-vis the suppliers. Now, in the recent, from this fiscal year, the most significant has been in relation to the cost for semiconductors and also power, electricity cost rather, and also the logistics cost for the suppliers. This fiscal year has been very high, so that's why we have been taking very appropriate responses to our suppliers on these fronts.
Going forward, we'll continue to with regard to matters that are beyond the control of the suppliers, we'll discuss with the suppliers so that we can take appropriate measures, and so that we'll be able to grow together. That is how we're addressing this matter.
Thank you.
Thank you. Because of the time constraint, this will be the final question for the financials. Just one question, please. Tokyo Keizai, Yokoyama-san, please.
Yes, this is Yokoyama. Do you hear me?
Yes, go ahead.
Just one thing. Just one question.
Sure.
Just one thing. About the Japanese operation by segment, we, if you look at the reference materials, there's a big deficit or loss you are making. How are you going to make it profitable eventually? There may be specifics which are unique to Japan. What are the drivers of the deficit that you are generating in the Japanese market segment?
Yes. First off, we want the customers to recognize the value of our cars. Including the existing cars, we want to bring it up to the appropriate level.
While working together with the customers, we would like to boost the volume, and I think this is immediate challenge. On the other hand, in terms of supply, we are asking customers to wait for a long time. As soon as possible, we want to deliver the cars. This is the big approach, general approach. Talking about the details, Ashwani-san will elaborate, please, about the Japanese operation.
Thank you. At first, the first priority is customer waiting time to be reduced as soon as possible. The second is how we get Japanese customer recognize electrified cars. This is what we are working on with Ariya and Sakura. That's the reason. In Ambition 2030, we announced that by 2030, 50% of our electrified mix in Japan will be higher than 50%. Thanks to the great success of Sakura and Ariya, we have already achieved in 2022, which means we are leading the democratization of electrification in Japan.
The third deficit, which I would say is Japan is our home country, and we keep all of our new technologies, in terms of process, product, in Japan, and we invest, and we are investing heavily in Japan, in the plants, in the R&D, in the advanced R&D, which means we need volume, domestic as well as the export volumes in Japan, to grow Japan more and more profitably, for global Nissan. That is purely dependent on the supply chain. These are the three big deficits which we believe in Japan we have, but we want to convert these challenges into opportunities and make Japan a big growth profit pillar for global Nissan.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have several more minutes. Is there any question other than financials? We are ready to take some questions other than financials. Nikkei Shimbun, Akama-san.
Yes, hello. This is Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Akama speaking. Do you hear me?
Yes, go ahead.
Yes, thank you. It's hard to ask. It's about alliance. I'm not going to ask you about the details of the ongoing talks, but yesterday, Capital Market Day took place. de Meo-san
Talked about the intellectual property. For IP, he said he need to discuss about IP for the past and the future. Specifically, what kind of differences in the opinions do you have between Renault and Nissan with regards to the IP? This is the first question. The second question, Google and Qualcomm are ready to participate, and Renault will develop new products. One, third party, non-alliance third party will be involved in development work, and how do you perceive this? Uchida-san, this is a question for you.
Thank you. As I said in the beginning, we are discussing how to increase the competitiveness within the alliance and how this benefits the growth of each entity. That's what we are seriously discussing today. That's what I would like to reiterate.
Talking about the second question that you raised, going forward, in delivering variety of services, especially in the forefront of electrification, the world is divided, and the speed of each country differs, and customer acceptance differ. In this context, collaboration with a partnership is a natural consequence. Therefore, Renault, as a next step of Renaulution, decided to consider the discussion, started to discuss with these new partners, and that has been presented at Capital Markets Day. You know, enhancing the value of Nissan together with other partners is what we need to think about, so this is a natural consequence or natural evolution. But as I said, for example, going forward, what, how. If Nissan were to work together on the new entity with Renault, what are the potential benefits, and how should we do? That's what we need to discuss on.
Going back to the IP subject, intellectual property, IP. I don't know how to put it. As a common sense of business, we need to have a common sense-based discussion with a partner. If we worked with a new partner, we need to have the careful discussion, so it's natural. With the common sense, we need to have a good discussion. That's what we have to do. I'm not sure whether this is answering your question, but what's the most important thing is business transformation. In carrying out business transformation, whom should we partner and what kind of value should we deliver as a company is a question. What should be the strength or competitive edge of each company, and how should we treat the IP in this context? This is about the usual business. Business as usual.
In that sense, differences in opinion on IP, that's what you mentioned, but that's, as far as I know, that doesn't exist.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. It's time. After this, there will be a financial announcement by other carmaker. With this, we would like to conclude the session for today. Thank you for joining. Thank you.