Japan’s carmakers have got their US inventory back to the levels they were at before last year’s earthquake and tsunami in their home country.
Production plummeted last year following the disaster in Japan and flooding in Thailand. The lack of product saw Toyota and Honda lose significant market share in the US.
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According to market research firm Autodata, Japan’s seven carmakers had a combined inventory of 908,000 new vehicles available for sale in the US at the end of March, up some 27,000 units from the end of February and nearly 400,000 more than were available when the inventory shortages were at their worst in July last year.
Existing inventories in the US now exceed the number available at the end of March last year, just after the earthquake and tsunami disaster struck Japan.
Honda, which has faced a protracted shortage of parts, now has 244,000 new cars in inventory in the US, over 8,000 more than a year ago. In February the company manufactured some 152,000 cars in North America, 40% more than the same month of 2011 and a record high for local monthly production.
Toyota had an inventory of 311,000 new cars at the end of March, up 5,500 units from February when the company ran two shifts at its new Corolla plant in Mississippi.
