Japan Auto Market in October 2023 grows for the 14th month in a row, with new sales reaching 214,235 (+15.4%). YTD figures at 2.22 million are up 20.4% from the previous year. Lexus surges 132.9% in volume.
Market Trend and Outlook
The Japanese Auto Market in October 2023 grows for the 14th month in a row, with new sales reaching 214,235 (+15.4%). YTD figures at 2.22 million are up 20.4% from the previous year.
Looking at cumulative data up to October 2023, brand-wise Toyota maintains 1st with 1.16 million sales (+33.0%), followed by Nissan at 218,223 (-1.2%), Honda at 212,163 registrations (+6.1%), Mazda at 119,019 (+9.6%), Suzuki with 101,158 sales (+22.9%), Lexus at 82,738 (+132.9%) and Subaru with 70,816 new registrations (+5.4%).
Mercedes ranks in 8th with 41,193 sales (+3.4%), in front of Mitsubishi with 39,582 sales (-6.4%) and BMW closing the Top 10 with 27,684 new car registrations (+10.9%).
Looking at specific models the Honda N-Box is the best seller with a 13.5% increase in year-on-year sales, followed by the Toyota Yaris which is up 13.0%.
Medium-Term Market Trend
The Japanese auto-market in the last decade hasn’t performed amazingly. With its last great rise in 2012 (+26%), sales have remained between the 5 and 5.5 million range until 2019 with the peak reached in 2014.
With the global pandemic in 2020 the entire world economy slowed down drastically, stores and manufactures closing down and most economies taking a beating. The Japanese auto market was no exception falling 12.5% and bringing sales to the mid 4 million range. Although the Japanese market did drop compared to other economies it stood its ground relatively well.
In the last few years the Japanese auto market hasn’t recovered from the fall in 2020. External factors are to blame for this fall in demand for automotives: firstly the lack of raw materials has lead car manufacturers to raise prices and waiting times for cars; another reason is that more and more manufacturers are pushing towards electric that on average costs much more than a diesel or petrol car. This being said despite the terrible performance in 2022, the Japanese market still maintains one of the largest auto markets in the world.
With 2023 starting off strong, this might be the year in which the Japanese Market finally starts to revoker from the covid driven collapse in 2020.
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for all Brands, top 10 Manufacturers Group and top 10 Models.
