New domestic vehicle sales in April are expected to record the largest year on year fall for any month due to the 11 March earthquake that devastated northeastern Japan, a media report said.
In the first 14 days of April, new vehicle sales, other than minivehicles, tumbled to around 29,000 units, down 58% year on year, sources told Kyodo News.
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The drop indicates that new vehicle sales for all of April could turn out to be worse than the current record decline of 45.1% registered in May 1974, with the volume of sales likely to fall below the current low of 136,074 units in January 1968, they said.
New vehicle sales in Japan tend to accelerate toward the end of each month. As the current supply crunch is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon, however, the margin of decline in April sales could eventually be even sharper, the sources added.
