Japan New Auto Sales Drop Slows Markedly in June

As of Thursday, domestic new vehicles sales, excluding those of minivehicles with engine sizes of up to 660 c.c, totaled 149,558 units, down 12.1% from a year before, informed sources told Jiji Press. Though the final sales figure for June has yet to be fixed, it is certain that the sales’ contraction rate for the month will be sharply smaller than 20 to 30% for the past seven months since last November, they said, pointing out the underlying trend is changing. By maker, new auto sales at Toyota Motor Corp. stood down only 8.6% from a year earlier as of Thursday, showing a 15.1-percentage-point improvement from the drop in May. The fully remodeled Prius gasoline-electric hybrid, which emerged as the top-selling car in the country soon after its debut in the previous month, keeps leading the top Japanese automaker’s sales in June. Honda Motor Co. is enjoying new vehicle sales growth, thanks to continuously brisk demand for the new Insight hybrid. By contrast, Nissan Motor Co. saw the rate of its sales drop increase 19.6 points to 28.7%, due apparently to the absence of a hybrid model in its product lineup, the sources said. (June 26, 2009)