Most Japanese vehicle manufacturers have announced strong growth in global production volumes in October.
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Toyota global production was up 12% in October to 710,000 units, and Honda up 15.9% to 323,000 units. Both recorded a decline in domestic market sales in October, but production was nevertheless up thanks to strong exports. Toyota sales in Japan were down 5.6% to 130,000 units (cars and light commercial vehicles), but production was up 15.9% to 365,000 units. Honda domestic sales were down 6.2% to 50,000 vehicles in October, but exports were up a staggering 48% compared to a year ago, to 57,000 units, mainly due to a 125% increase in shipments to the USA (34,000 units). Honda’s North American production was also up (+4% to 123,000 vehicles).
Year-to-date Toyota group’s total production (including Daihatsu and Hino vehicles) is up 9.7% to 7,495,465 units. Of these 3,286,179 (43%) were produced overseas.
Honda now produces almost twice as many vehicles overseas as it does in Japan. Its global production for the January-October 2006 period totalled 3,021,865 units, of which 1,931,911 units (64%) were produced overseas.
Nissan, which has been less successful than Toyota or Honda in the last year, also saw global production rise strongly in October (+5.9% to 294,677). Overseas production rose 9.5% to 193,058 units. Strongest growth was in Mexico were production rose 43.6% to 44,778 units, due to the start of production of the new Sentra there. UK production was 13.3% to 29,218 units. Domestic production was down 0.5% to 101,619 units.
Mazda’s domestic output in October was up 17.8% to 84,116 units, while Mazda production overseas remained flat at 25,367 units.
Mitsubishi was the only major Japanese OEM to report a decline in global production. . Total global production came in at 108,087 units, a decline of 6.3 percent from a year ago period. Mitsubishi’s Japanese production rose 16.6% to 68,389 units.
