Japanese Car Industry Gets Beaten Up In China
Looking back at three catastrophes, the high yen, the tsunami and the Thai flood, a Japanese auto executive said to me last spring: “We’ve gone through hell, and made it. What else would be there, war?” He was close. A war of words over rocks in the East China Sea destroys Japanese car sales in China, while Korea profits.
- Honda’s China car sales plunged 54 percent in October from a year earlier, Reuters reports. In September, Honda’s sales fell 41 percent.
- Nissan sold 64,300 vehicles in China in October, down 41 percent. In September, sales had been down 35 percent
- Yesterday, Toyota announced that October China sales had dropped 44.1 percent.
At the same time, Hyundai’s China sales climbed 37 percent in October, after a 15 percent rise in September. Reuters comments that Hyundai’s 80,598 units sold in October exceed the 69,715 combined sales total of Honda and Toyota for October.
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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Is this really such a dynamic, ongoing, news worthy topic that I see two stories on this from Mr. Schmitt every time I look at TTAC? I get it, the chinese are pissed at the japanese and are engaging in some xenophobic hijinks by vandalizing japanese cars and dealerships, and japanese car sales are down. But I don't think I need to get this message twice a day (or so it seems, I didn't actually keep count)