The Japanese new car market ended the year 2012 up 27.5 percent to 5,369,721 units. You may read other numbers elsewhere, but that’s because it is often overlooked that regular vehicles and mini vehicles are reported separately in Japan. At TTAC, we consolidate them as a service to our readers.
Japan ends the year without the big double-digit drop some prophesied for the last quarter after government incentives expired in September. The market is down slightly in December, and up strongly for the year.
Sales of regular vehicles were down 3.4 percent in December and up 26.1 percent for the year, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association reports. Honda and Nissan were underperforming, Toyota outperformed the market.
Sales of mini vehicles fell in line with their bigger brothers after having been ahead for the previous months: Up 30.1 percent for the year, and down 2.5 percent for December, according to data provided by the Japan Mini Vehicles Association. Honda continues its attack of the mini vehicle market with its highly successful NBOX series.
| Total vehicle sales Japan December 2012 | ||||||
| Manufacturer | Dec ’12 | Dec ’11 | YoY | YTD ’12 | YTD ’11 | YoY |
| Daihatsu | 41,696 | 47,578 | -12.4% | 677,171 | 548,279 | 23.5% |
| Hino | 3,996 | 3,446 | 16.0% | 42,463 | 34,238 | 24.0% |
| Honda | 44,798 | 41,459 | 8.1% | 745,205 | 503,532 | 48.0% |
| Isuzu | 5,405 | 4,294 | 25.9% | 59,805 | 42,096 | 42.1% |
| Lexus | 2,967 | 2,242 | 32.3% | 43,657 | 42,365 | 3.0% |
| Mazda | 12,387 | 12,132 | 2.1% | 218,361 | 189,925 | 15.0% |
| Mitsubishi | 8,472 | 10,174 | -16.7% | 140,493 | 147,624 | -4.8% |
| Mitsubishi Fuso | 2,885 | 2,584 | 11.6% | 34,715 | 27,032 | 28.4% |
| Nissan | 39,046 | 45,160 | -13.5% | 659,855 | 591,370 | 11.6% |
| Subaru | 14,177 | 15,453 | -8.3% | 177,722 | 158,701 | 12.0% |
| Suzuki | 40,308 | 43,659 | -7.7% | 673,138 | 552,903 | 21.7% |
| Toyota | 94,142 | 97,158 | -3.1% | 1,646,409 | 1,157,383 | 42.3% |
| UD Trucks | 738 | 876 | -15.8% | 9,104 | 8,469 | 7.5% |
| Other | 27,487 | 22,990 | 19.6% | 241,623 | 206,302 | 17.1% |
| Total | 338,504 | 349,205 | -3.1% | 5,369,721 | 4,210,219 | 27.5% |
Consolidated, the Japanese market ends in much better shape than many predicted: Up 27.5 percent for the year, and only a slight 3.1 percent loss in December, compared to a subsidized previous year.
This year will be a different story.
Anyone else notice the Hyundai in the center of the header image?
Yeah, **right beside the Acura**? Har, har!
Ha ha! I think they meant to use this photo for their previous story: What’s Wrong with this Picture?
Still trying to figure out the San Diego skyline as well…
California sucks!
Yeah me too…. sure is photogenic…. I should know. Been trying to do night photography with it using my old Canon EF, didn’t quite come out right.
haha reminded me of foreign companies ads from 80s and 90s. we used to see lots of wrong/rough stereotype ads, just to let us feel ‘they do not understand us, we won’t buy\'(i.e Korean models, Chinese BGM etc..)
Some companies improved so better these days. Love the Mercedes’ geniue Anime style campaign here.
next-a-class.com/animation/index.html
Also, the initial sentence says “up 217.5 percent” which impressed me greatly. Turns out, it’s actually 27.5%
So, what’s the best-performing import brand?
It’s a closed market, remember? :P
GM better get started on the Japanese market if they ever intend to outsell Toyota again in global sales. Toyota group sold more than 2.3 Million cars in Japan. GM likely sold less than 10,000 Units.