Japan's new vehicle market continued to grow in August, by 5.5% to 355,308 units from 336,661 a year earlier, according to the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association.
The positive market performance follows a strong second quarter for the Japanese economy with revised data showing annual GDP growth of around 2.5%, driven by a pick-up in consumer spending and investment growth.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
In the first eight months of the year, the market expanded by just over 8% to 3,565,396 units compared with 3,299,615 a year ago, reflecting mainly strong demand for passenger vehicles.
Passenger vehicle sales increased by 8.5% to 2,994,723 in the eight month period, driven by particularly strong demand for compact and subcompact models. Truck sales increased by 5.6% to 558,983 while bus sales were 12.8% higher at 11,690 after exceptionally strong growth last year.
Toyota's sales increased by 6.9% to 1,083,680 in the eight month period while Honda followed with a 2% increase to 476,173. Suzuki's sales amounted to 457,597 (+8.2%); Nissan 435,774 (+23.2%); Daihatsu 426,841 (+8.7%); and Mazda 142,724 (+2.4%).
