Mitsubishi wants to capitalize on the success of the Outlander and plans to announce a 5- to 7-year product plan for North America this spring.
While limited details are known about the brand’s product plan, Mitsubishi North America chief Mark Chaffin has described 2024 as a “platform for the next phase of Mitsubishi’s transformation,” adding that “product is the key to furthering the acceleration of our brand transformation.”
“The success of Outlander has proven what this brand can do, and it has been the catalyst to completely change everything we do as a company and changing how our dealers run their business.,” Chaffin said.
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Speaking with Auto News, Mitsubishi dealers noted that the brand is losing customers because of holes in its lineup.
“What the dealers have been most anxious to get news about is a nice product plan,” one retailer said. “We have some holes in our lineup. We have customers that defect because we don’t offer [the larger crossover].”
Chaffin noted the firm “needs a little bit more time” to decide its future portfolio and in the meantime, stated that Mitsubishi will increase advertising by 15% this year and aims to grow its U.S. sales by 5%.
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“We’re making these investments to drive sales opportunities to our dealers,” Chaffin said. “In January, we saw [market share] growth, especially with Outlander. We saw a big increase in high FICO score customers coming to our brand.”
The Mitsubishi boss added that the brand is also eager to increase dealer profitability this year and working with the dealer board for ways to drive the bottom line of dealerships.
Roughly 12 months ago, Mitsubishi announced that it would launch 16 new models in the coming five years, consisting of ICE, hybrid, and battery-electric vehicles, but it did not specify which would be available in the United States.
