India could overtake Japan as Asia’s second largest vehicle market behind China by 2016, according to new estimates from IHS Automotive.
Sales in India are projected to rise to 4.88m vehicles by 2016 from 2.91m last year, and rising to 6.73m in 2020.
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Japan will see demand rise to 4.51m in 2016 from 4.13m last year, when sales were held back by the earthquake and tsunami disaster. Japan had sales of 4.87m in 2010.
Japanese sales, including those of mini vehicles, are forecast to rise to 5.19m this year.
Despite recent concerns about slower economic growth, IHS said China is on track to hit sales of 30.68m vehicles by 2020, up 74% from 17.66m last year. Sales in China are seen rising to 19.21m this year, passing Europe’s combined sales of 18.15m.
IHS also projected that Toyota will remain the number one automaker in Asia, with sales of 5.4m vehicles in 2020, up from 4.2m last year. Those figures include sales from mini vehicle subsidiary Daihatsu.
But second placed General Motors could lose its place to current number three Volkswagen.
