Since the global financial crisis, Mitsubishi has not experienced a single profitable year in the U. S. After this past year, which for Mitsubishi ends on March 31 each year, the company has enjoyed a U. S. profit of nearly $26 million. Even though that is meager number by automaker standards, it is a profit and enough of one to make the leaders of Mitsubishi feel it’s time to introduce some new vehicles into the lineup on American soil, which will help start a trend of profitable years that will hopefully continue to be the case year after year.
The vehicles Mitsubishi plans to unleash on the American public are the Outlander PHEV, a sedan version of the Mirage and possibly a return of the Montero which was passed out in 2008. Because of the fantastic success of the SUV lineup in the U. S. along with the massive increase in sales of the Mirage, Mitsubishi feels these will be the vehicles that will help continue a profitable future for the Japanese automotive giant.
Mitsubishi has seen the effect their new marketing and continued push toward better vehicles has created with a thirty percent increase in vehicles sold through October which brought the six-month total to 64,564 which was way ahead of the rest of the industry who only experienced a six percent gain in sales. As for model breakdowns, the Outlander Sport was the best seller at 25,620 vehicles and the Mirage came in the second spot at 14,240. This was not only a small increase for the Mirage, but a massive boost as the car had only sold 495 models the previous year, making its introduction a small one for the first year.
Because of the success of the three-cylinder Mirage, Mitsubishi felt it was time to add the sedan version to the lineup which has been sold overseas as the Attrage and Mirage G4. This brings the Mirage sedan to the U. S. market sometime between October 2015 and March 2016. The Mirage has been a huge hit as a small hatchback that offers great fuel mileage and more of the same is expected to take place when the sedan comes to the States.
Adding the Montero back to the lineup after a six year hiatus will help strengthen the market for Mitsubishi SUVs. The new Montero is expected to be a GC-PHEV model that was shown as a concept model at the Tokyo Auto Show in 2013. The only question left on the table once these three are introduces is a larger sedan. With the Galant being phased out, Mitsubishi does have a glaring hole in its lineup where a mid-sized or large sedan should be. Currently talks are taking place with Renault to bring a midsized sedan with the pair working together on the model. Adding all this to the market in the U. S. will bring Mitsubishi more profits and offer a wider variety to the American consumer than ever before from Mitsubishi.
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