Japan auto market in 2020 falls by 11.6% as the pandemic and lockdowns affect sales. Full-Year sales have been 4.6 Million. Toyota registers top 10 hold (-5.9%) and gains 2.1% share.
Market Trend
The Japanese car market has been hit in 2020 by the world-wide COVID-19 pandemic, which has impacted sales significantly.
It is the third biggest market in the world, with an annual volume oscillating in the last decade between 4.9 and 5.5 million units, with 2019 ending at 5.2 million units.
At the beginning of 2020, according to the data released by the JADA, JAMA, and JAIA, the total vehicles (including HCVs and Bus) started in a very negative tone (-13.5%). The situation was improving slowly up until the virus struck, leading to a very sharp drop in sales in April (-23.7%), followed by the worst-performing month of the year in May (-36.8%).
In the second half of the year the country recovered reporting only one month with a double-digit sales drop (August, down 15.2%), but also only one month of growth in the entire year (October, +1.8%).
Indeed, Full-Year sales for 2020 have been 4.598.610, reporting a decline of 11.6% compared to 2019.
Brand-wise, this year the leader Toyota (-5.9%) gained 2.1% market share and registered the best hold in the leaderboard. In second place we have Suzuki (-8.2%), which gained 0.5% share, overtaking Honda which lost 0.6% share, falling 15.6%. Daihatsu remained in 4th place and lost 10.7%, followed by Nissan which lost 18.3%.
Mazda remained in 6th place and lost 12.4%, followed by Subaru (-20.5%) and Mitsubishi which reported the worst performance in the leaderboard by losing 33.3% sales. Closing the leaderboard we have Isuzu losing 19.5% this year and Hino in last place losing 14.9%.
The most sold vehicle this year remains the Honda N-BOX (-2.3%) with 247.707 units sold, followed by the Toyota Yaris registering 151.766 new sales this year. The Suzuki Spacia (-15.9%) closes the podium and reports 139.851 new units sold.
Tables with sales figures
In the tables below we report sales for all Brands, top 10 Manufacturers Group and top 10 Models.
