Toyota Motor Corp., Japan's largest automaker, and Nissan Motor Co., the nation's third-largest, led a drop in production among the country's carmakers in June as rising unemployment sapped North American sales.
Toyota's production fell for an eleventh straight month, falling 24 percent to 565,541 units from a year earlier, the company said in a statement today. Nissan made 240,827 autos, 22 percent less. Honda Motor Co., Japan's second-largest automaker, built 257,852 vehicles, down 20 percent, it said.
Japanese automakers cut output in North America last month to reduce inventories as overall sales in the U.S. slumped 35 percent during the first six months of 2009. Carmakers' production in Japan also fell, even as the government began a tax-incentive program targeted at spurring fuel-efficient car sales including new hybrids introduced by Toyota and Honda.
"At a global level, vehicle sales appear to have now bottomed," said Ashvin Chotai, managing director of Intelligence Automotive Asia Ltd. in London. "In the medium term, U.S. sales won't hit the sort of levels we had in 2005 and 2006 and it's also difficult to see Japan sales rebound significantly."
Intelligence Automotive predicts sales in the U.S. will fall to about 9.8 million units this year from 13.2 million a year ago and then rise to 10.8 million in 2010.
China Production
China was one of the few markets where automakers had gains in June and for the first half. China's passenger-vehicle sales rose 48 percent in June, the biggest jump since February 2006, as government stimulus spending spurred a revival in the world's third-largest economy.
Production in China was a record for Honda and Nissan in the first half. Honda's production gained 3.3 percent to 262,004 units in the period aided by strong demand for Accord, Fit and City cars.
Nissan's China production for the six-month period was 222,612 units, up 28 percent from a year earlier, it said.
Toyota's June production in the country gained for the first time in eight months to 55,585 units, an 11 percent jump.
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