Toyota, Nissan, Mazda drop, Honda grows in Jan. China sales

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Four major Japanese automakers have subsequently announced their Jan. sales volume in China. Three of them—Toyota, Nissan and Mazda—failed to harvest a rising start. Honda posted an upward movement under the pressure doubled by the Lunar New Year holiday and the coronavirus epidemic. Notably, Dongfeng Honda, a joint venture headquartered in Wuhan, achieved a double-digit increase in Jan. deliveries.

Honda

Last month, Honda delivered a total of 149,863 new vehicles in China, starting its year of 2020 with an evident growth of 9.8%.

Two joint ventures both achieved increase. GAC Honda saw its deliveries edged up 0.6% from a year ago to 76,266 units, while the Wuhan-headquartered Dongfeng Honda obtained a surge of 21.3% with 73,597 vehicles handed over to customers.

（Photo source: Honda)

There were six models whose respective deliveries exceeded 10,000 units in January, namely, the Accord, the Crider, the Vezel, the Civic, the CR-V and the XR-V. Of those, the retail sales volume of the Accord, the Civic and the CR-V all topped 20,000 units.

The combined deliveries of hybrid models amounted to 14,453 units. Up until now, the hybrid versions of the Accord, the Breeze, the Odyssey, the CR-V, the Inspire and the Elysion have been put on sale.

Honda said it will strive to reach the same deliveries as that of 2019 in China, quite a prudent sales goal. Starting 2020, the automaker will speed up its BEV development. The latest electrification products are expected to be unveiled at the 2020 Auto China.

Toyota

Toyota saw its China sales slid 1.2% from the previous year to 145,300 units in January, according to a Japanese media outlet.

Retailing 67,980 new vehicles, GAC Toyota gained a slight growth of 1.6%, said the joint venture. The sales of the Levin series and the C-HR reached 23,983 units and 6,335 units, jumping 11% and 33% respectively compared to the year-ago period. With 11,561 units sold, the YARiS L family had a sales volume of 11,561 units.

（Photo source: FAW Toyota)

Another joint venture FAW-Toyota sold 62,700 vehicles last month, remaining flat over a year ago, according to local media reports. The sales volume of the RAV4 leapt 21.9% to roughly 13,700 units, while the number reached 27,600 units for the Corolla family.

Toyota is ambitious to sell 1.76 million vehicles in China this year, versus 1.62 million sold throughout 2019. Although the fight against the coronavirus outbreak still continues, Toyota has resumed the operation at some plants in Changchun and Tianjin from Feb. 17.

Nissan

Nissan announced its China sales slid 11.8% year on year to 118,143 units (including PVs, light CVs and imported vehicles) in January due to the earlier Spring Festival holiday and the novel coronavirus outbreak.

The monthly sales of the PV unit fell 10.9% over a year ago to 101,300 units, among which 92,158 units were from Dongfeng Nissan and the rest was from Dongfeng Venucia.

The Nissan Sylphy, the seventh-generation ALTIMA, the X-Trail and the Qashqai were main sales contributors. The combined sales of the newly launched Venucia D60EV, e30EV and T60EV stood at 585 units in the period.

Meanwhile, the light CV arm, including Dongfeng Automobile and Zhengzhou Nissan, witnessed a Jan. sales decline of 20.4% to 13,740 units.

Mazda

Mazda Motor (China) Co.,Ltd. said its new car retail sales in January 2020 amounted to 20,963 units, of which 7,539 units and 13,424 units were from FAW Mazda and Changan Mazda respectively.

（Photo source: Changan Mazda)

Compared to the data the company offered a year ago, Mazda posted a decrease of 8.23% in its China deliveries.

Despite the overall downturn and fewer workdays than the year-ago period, FAW Mazda still net a growth of 7.45% in January. The retail sales of the Mazda6 Atenza and the CX-4 reached 3,699 units and 3,840 units respectively.

Changan Mazda saw its Jan. deliveries slide 15.19% from the previous year. As for specific models, 10,698 and 2,648 consumers in China took delivery of the Mazda3 Axela and the Mazda CX-5.