The Japanese new car market, long believed to be down, out, and a victim of the dreaded demographic bomb, remains on its steep upward trajectory. With a little help from Japan’s benevolent government. Japan’s domestic sales of new cars, trucks and buses increased 33.5 percent from a year earlier in April, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association said today as per The Nikkei [sub]. That’s up nine months in a row. One brand is especially happy. Name starts with a T.
A total of 222,095 vehicles were registered in April, the association said. This count does not include kei cars or minivehicles, we’ll report those when we get them. Last year, the Japanese market was woken from the near-dead by a shot of incentives and subsidies for low-emission cars.
Toyota Motor 116,640 (+50.4)
Nissan Motor 27,728 (+31.0)
Honda Motor 36,710 (+13.3)
Mazda Motor 10,784 (+38.3)
Mitsubishi Motors 4,398 (+42.5)
Suzuki Motor 4,752 (+93.8)
Fuji Heavy 3,364 (+ 9.4)
Imports 11,642 (-49.9)
Update: Minivehicles came in with 130,370 units sold, a rise of 10.8 percent. The total of registered and minivehicles was 352,465 units in April, a rise of 24.1 percent.
I’d love to have Haruhi or some Lucky Star characters on my Lancer :-) That paintwork must cost a small fortune. Not so sure about the guys cosplaying female characters in that video….. :-P
In Japan they’ll stick anime characters on almost anything. At 4:25 onwards there’s a display of car products. Featured are bottles of scented engine oil (I’m not making this up!) with Lucky Star characters. One of the bottles has large Japanese writing saying “Don’t drink!”
Hello Mr. Schmitt.
A little news from Brazil if I may.
Being last month the 1st full month without any incentives, the market dropped 22% to 24%, depending on who you talk to. If I may crow, I pretty much nailed it (I predicted a 20% drop). However, it was stll the 2nd best month of April in history. The launch of the new Uno will buck the trend some, and Fiat will get more market share at the expense of all others. The situation will probably get worse over the next 3 months, after which I expect prices to go back down and the consumers to return in force. Though it won’t be as good as the last 2 years (the 2 best in history) it’ll be a strong 3rd best year. Who knows, if the car companies are aggressive enough in terms of pricing (price is what moves cars in Brazil) they could still reverse the situation and make this the 2nd best year in history.
This should really drive home exactly how dominant Toyota is in it’s home market. GM, even at it’s peak, did not “own” a market like Toyota owns the JDM.
It’s also interesting to see both Suzuki’s share with kei cars included (which is huge) and Mitsubishi (because of how far they’ve fallen).
I see Suzuki and Mitsu can’t even sell many cars in their home market.
Where are their money making markets?
For Suzuki its India, where Maruti Suzuki is one of the biggest players, and these numbers don’t include kei-cars where Suzuki is a leader. In fact, Nissan, Mazda kei-cars are built by Suzuki. Their non-kei car offerings are fairly paltry even in Japan.
As for Mitsubishi, they are in trouble, but they have been for a long time. Fortunately, the Mitsubishi group, which owns Mitsubishi Motors, has deep pockets. Mitsubishi UFJ in particular came out smelling pretty rosy after the Lehman bros crash, getting a major stake in Morgan Stanley for a nice price. But the company needs to find volume in the automotive division; quick.
Imported cars are the 4th largest seller, ahead of Mazda. You frequently mentioned Japan as being import resistant (I don’t remember if it was specifically to US made cars).
What are the popular imported cars in Japan?
Most popular imports? German cars. Specifically BMW and M-B. Mostly BMW. At least based upon what I see on the roads when I’ve over there.
According to the numbers, surprisingly, Volkswagens …