Honda Aims to Boost Japan Sales With New Minivan

TOKYO October 17, 2003; Dow Jones reported that Honda Motor Co. aims to turn around its sluggish domestic sales with a fully remodeled minivan to be launched later this month, President Takeo Fukui said Friday.

Honda plans to market its new "Odyssey" model from Oct. 24 in Japan, an update of a vehicle that sparked a minivan boom in the Japanese market in the mid- 1990's after its 1994 launch.

Japan's second biggest automaker in terms of unit sales is targeting overall domestic sales of 815,000 vehicles for the current fiscal year through March, down 4% from last fiscal year.

While sales in the first half remained severe at home, "we're heading for our goal. ... we expect sales of this (new) model to grow strong," Fukui told a news conference.

In the April-June quarter, Honda's domestic sales totaled 153,000 vehicles, down 28.2% from the same period last year. Sales in July and August were down 17.3% and 14.9%, respectively.

Honda expects 5,000 monthly sales of the new minivan model.

That looks somewhat conservative when compared with monthly sales of the previous Odyssey models, which topped 10,000 at their peak. However, Honda anticipates more competition in the minivan segment as rivals such as Toyota Motor Corp. and Nissan Motor Co. have also aggressively promoted minivan models.

Annual sales of the Odyssey topped off at around 125,000 units in 1995.

The new Odyssey will be marketed only in Japan.