Nissan PH issues statement regarding Australian Navara launch

Next-gen Nissan Navara might not yet immediately arrive in PH

Whenever automakers hold new product launches in other markets, they usually arrive in the Philippine market several months or a year later. There are exceptions, however, that sometimes take a couple of years before they make their local debut.

Just a few weeks ago, Nissan officially announced it would be launching the all-new Navara for the Australian and New Zealand markets. As expected, there’s already buzz brewing about the Philippine launch of the next-generation Navara. It's only logical, right? Well, not so fast, implies Nissan Philippines.

In an official statement, NPI declared that “while we cannot comment on future products, we would like to clarify that launches in other markets do not automatically indicate a local release, as Nissan carefully evaluates each market’s demands and conditions”.

Nissan PH is playing it safe, stating that the premiere of the all-new Navara in Australia and New Zealand doesn’t automatically mean it’s relevant to the Philippine market or that a local launch will immediately follow.

“Nissan constantly studies market trends to ensure that our offerings are aligned with local preferences and customer expectations. We appreciate the enthusiasm surrounding our global product line and look forward to sharing updates at the appropriate time,” added Nissan.

So why the possible delay? Well, we can think of two reasons. The first is based on a report by our friends over at headlightmag earlier this year, the all-new Nissan Navara is set to be launched in early 2027 in Thailand. Since Nissan Philippines gets the Navara from Thailand, this could be the likely reason we may not immediately get the next-generation pickup truck. 

That possible reason is unusual, though, as Nissan Australia also gets its Navara from Thailand (unless we are mistaken). The reason will only make sense if they're switching to getting vehicles from Mexico, but given that the model will share more with the Triton of Mitsubishi, then Thailand is really the only place to get it from.

The other reason we can think of -and perhaps the one that makes the most sense- is that local dealers still have a lot of stock of the Navara, and that there are still more units on the way. Nissan will want to protect the saleability of the Navara and run out the remaining as well as incoming units before making any official announcements.

They have done so in the past, and the best case we can recall is the 2-year delay of the launch for the Y62 facelift. The vehicle premiered in 2019, but they launched it in the Philippines in 2022. The problem there was that they had ordered quite a lot of the previous look, and wanted to finish those off before announcing the new one. 

With the D23 Nissan Navara set to soldier on for another year, it looks like the Philippines will have to wait until mid-2027 for the next-generation pickup to arrive in the country.