September Results from Japan

10/22/96

Kyodo has reported that Toyota's share of the domestic Japanese auto market dropped to the lowest level it's seen in nearly sixteen years, although it still has a bigger piece of the pie than any other domestic carmaker. Nissan's market share ranked second biggest, while Honda came in third, squeaking past Mitsubishi. Mazda had the smallest market share of the top five Japanese automakers.

The overall growth rate for Japan's domestic market was less that 8.4% in September, as measured by new registrations. Toyota's market share dropped to 35.9%, the smallest slice of the pie it has seen since it was down to 35.3% in January 1981. Honda was the sole Japanese carmaker to report a rise in first-half sales (up 23.1%, year-on-year).

Although Mitsubishi outpaced Honda in terms of production, if Honda's sales continue to come in stronger than those reported by Mitsubishi, the automaker will manage to redraw the map of Japan's domestic automarket for the first time in seven years.

Here's Kyodo's table of half-year performance figures by volume for Japan's top five automakers. The chart includes percentage changes from a year earlier in parentheses.

                       Domestic
          Production      Sales    Exports
------------------------------------------
Toyota     1,622,413    957,526    664,145
              ( 6.2)     (-0.3)     (17.1)
Nissan       784,201    523,013    283,131
              (-5.8)     (-0.9)     (-9.5)
Mitsubishi   566,304    350,263    204,019
             (-12.8)    (-14.3)    (-16.5)
Honda        526,764    362,724    174,759
              (11.2)     (23.1)    (-16.3)
Mazda        355,873    159,534    209,100
              (-1.2)     (-9.0)      (3.0)

Paul Dever -- The Auto Channel