Daihatsu Motor expects Japan’s overall minicar market to fall 4.1% next year as last September’s expiry of government subsidies for fuel economy cars reduces demand, the company’s executive vice president was quoted as saying.
Daihatsu predicts the mini vehicle market will fall to around 1.65m vehicles in 2011 from an estimated 1.72m in 2010, executive vice president Katsuyuki Kamio said at a press conference for the launch of the redesigned Move mini car, according to Dow Jones.
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“We had expected the market would rebound after bottoming out in the middle of September to early October,” Kamio said. “It’s recovering gradually, but has been below levels we had expected.”
About 1.69m minivehicles were sold in 2009, accounting for 37% of Japan’s overall vehicle market.
Kamio said the volume of domestic orders the company received in November fell 13% year on year, an improvement from the 30% fall in both September and October. But the November decline was worse than the 10% decline the company had expected for the month.
