Japan In February 2011: Boro-Boro
It’s that time of the month again. Super-efficient Japan traditionally is first out of the gate with previous month sales numbers. Lately, there have been some who regret that efficiency. For the sixth straight month in a row, the Japanese new car market is tired, down, worn-out.
Sales of new cars in February fell 14.3 percent on the year to 252,634 vehicles, excluding minivehicles, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association told The Nikkei [sub] today.
Including minivehicles, the market was down 12.4 percent in February to 401,292 vehicles, Reuters reports.
Toyota saw a much steeper drop of 21.3 percent, excluding sales at Daihatsu (minivehicles) and Hino (commercial vehicles), as well as Lexus.
Sales at Honda underperformed the market only slightly with a drop of 16.1 percent.
Nissan gained share of the dwindling Japanese market by shrinking only 7.8 percent.
If you know Japanese, all data in their misery can be downloaded here. The Excel spreadsheet is here.
Now what does boro-boro mean?
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Nice utai-baba and some Osaka-ben!