Japan's new vehicle market continued to decline sharply in December 2019, by 11% to 344,875 units from 387,525 units a year earlier, according to registration data released by the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association.
A significant decline had been largely anticipated for the fourth quarter of last year in the wake of the well signalled hike in the general sales tax rate from 8% to 10% at the beginning of October.
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Government data showed economic growth remained reasonably buoyant in the first nine months of last year with third quarter GDP growth estimated at 1.7% year on year – helped inevitably by strong domestic consumption ahead of the sales tax hike.
The sharp market decline in the fourth quarter dragged full year sales down by 1.5% to 5,195,216 units from 5,272,067 units in 2018.
Sales of passenger cars fell by 2.1% to 4,301,091 units while truck volume rose by 1.5% to 880,539 units and bus sales dropped by just under 1% to 13,586 units.
Toyota's sales rose by 2.5% to 1,547,173 units in 2019 after declining by 5% in the previous year while second placed Honda's sales declined by 3.4% to 722,075 units; Suzuki 696,014 (-2.6%); Daihatsu 658,849 units (+1.9%); Nissan 567,643 units (-7.9%); and Mazda 203,580 units (-7.8%).
