Mitsubishi Motors dealers bought some 10% of the automaker’s new vehicle sales in Japan in fiscal 2004, in an apparent bid to inflate nominal sales hit by cover-up scandals, industry sources told Kyodo News.
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Dealers own nearly 20,000 of the 227,000 vehicles Mitsubishi Motors sold in the Japanese market in the year to March 31, the sources said.
Without dealers’ purchases, Mitsubishi might have failed to attain its sales target of 220,000 vehicles for the year, they said.
The sales number represented a steep decline of 132,000 vehicles from the previous year, reflecting a serious impact of the scandals.
A Mitsubishi Motors spokesman told Kyodo News dealers bought cars as they had to have more cars for loan to the rising number of customers bringing their vehicles in for check-ups in the wake of the vehicle defect cover-ups.
The company has never forced dealers to purchase Mitsubishi cars to attain the sales target, the spokesman reportedly said.
In the Japanese auto industry, automaker-affiliated dealers sometimes buy vehicles to attain sales targets, industry sources told the news agency.
Dealers then have to sell such vehicles as used ones, bringing them less profit than new cars, they said.
