Japan's Jan. new auto sales plunge 27.9% amid widening global recession+

TOKYO, Feb. 2 Kyodo -
Domestic sales of new vehicles plunged 27.9 percent in January from a year
earlier to 174,281 units, the largest drop for the reporting month, as the
widening global recession continued to dampen demand for new vehicles, an
industry body said Monday.
It was the sixth consecutive monthly decline in Japan's new auto sales,
excluding minivehicles with engines of up to 660 cc, said the Japan Automobile
Dealers Association, which began compiling the sales data in 1968.
Unit sales in January hit the lowest level for the month in 37 years, about
half the peak of 325,468 cars logged in January 1990, the association said.
''The bottom has collapsed,'' Takeshi Fushimi, the association's director, said
in reference to plunging demand for new vehicles. ''(The downturn in) new
vehicle sales became more serious.''
By type of car, passenger car sales slumped 28.0 percent to 153,950 vehicles
for the sixth straight month of decline, while truck sales dropped 27.5 percent
to 19,290 vehicles for the 28th consecutive month of fall. Bus sales slipped
11.0 percent to 1,041 units, marking the first drop in five months.
Toyota Motor Corp., which overtook General Motors Corp. in 2008 to become the
world's largest automaker in sales, sold 81,985 units excluding Lexus brand
cars in January, down 22.5 percent.
Honda Motor Co. sold 22,087 cars, down 30.7 percent, and Nissan Motor Co. sold
30,786 units, down 31.1 percent.
Sales of minivehicles in Japan also continued to fall in January as consumers
even shied away from smaller and cheaper cars, other data showed.
The Japan Mini Vehicles Association said sales of minivehicles fell 5.6 percent
from a year earlier to 127,426 units for the third consecutive monthly decline.
Automakers have been hammered by weakening demand for new vehicles amid the
deepening economic crisis and the credit crunch, which has resulted in tighter
lending.
Last week, Honda downgraded its earnings forecasts for the current year to
March 31 for a fourth time, hit by weak sales and the yen's steep appreciation
against other key currencies.
Toyota is also expected to expand its operating loss projection for fiscal 2008
from 150 billion yen estimated in December to around 400 billion yen.
==Kyodo
2009-02-02 22:51:02