Summary: Chinese sales of Japanese automobiles in October

Gasgoo.com (Shanghai) - Figures from Gasgoo.com (Chinese) showed that sales of Japanese branded automobiles continued to sharply decline into October. Their combined sales over the month totaled 99,989 units, a full 58.5 percent less than a year ago. October also marks the first time in nearly three years that Japanese manufacturers' monthly sales failed to exceed 100,000 units. At the same time, the manufacturers' combined market share fell to just nine percent, a full 14 percent lower than October of last year.

Among the major Japanese manufacturers operating in China, Suzuki's sales decline was the smallest at 20.9 percent. Suzuki was also the only manufacturer whose sales growth rate was larger in October than it was in September.

The other five major Japanese manufacturers, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi and Mazda, all experienced sales declines of over 50 percent in October, far more than previous decreases reported in September. Toyota reported a sales drop of 68.7 percent, selling a total of 24,100 vehicles over the month. Mitsubishi and Nissan's sales fell 65.4 percent and 62.7 percent, respectively. The latter was the top performing Japanese manufacturer in terms of Chinese sales over the month, managing to attract 27,400 orders. Honda and Mazda reported decreases of 54.1 percent and 51.6 percent, respectively.

Looking at cumulative Chinese sales results for the first ten months of the year, Toyota was the only Japanese manufacturer to report positive year-on-year sales growth. The manufacturer's ten month sales totaled 636,200 units, 0.2 percent more than a year ago. Toyota owes a great deal of its relatively good performance to the RAV4 SUV and the newly released E'Z minivan (sold overseas as the Verso). Meanwhile, sales of its flagship model, the Camry, grew just 1.6 percent from 2011 to 2012.

The other major Japanese manufacturers reported negative year-on-year growth, with Suzuki, Mazda and Mitsubishi's sales decreases in the double digits.

Only nine Japanese brand models managed to attract over 5,000 new orders in October: Dongfeng Nissan's Bluebird Sylphy, Guangqi Toyota Camry, Changhe Suzuki Big Dipper, Dongfeng Honda CR-V, Mazda6, Guangqi Honda City, Guangqi Honda Accord, Dongfeng Nissan Tiida Qida and Dongfeng Nissan New Sunny. Among them, only the Suzuki Big Dipper's sales increased from October of last year to October of this year.

The majority of models saw their sales decrease over 50 percent, with the Camry and Accord's sales dropping nearly 60 percent in October. Sales of models outside of the top nine fell even more severely, with Dongfeng Nissan reporting sales declines of over 75 percent for its Qashqai and New Teana models.