Did Anyone Mention Islands? Chinese Buy Japanese Again
Found around the corner from Toyota
It’s not quite the all clear, but Japanese automakers (and their government-owned Chinese joint-venture partners) breathe a bit easier after receiving April sales numbers for China. Numbers had been down severely after last September’s anti-Japan riots. Latest “figures suggest that the firms are closer to recovering their lost sales,” says The Nikkei [sub].
Honda, which was one of the hardest hit last October, is down only 2.4 percent year-on-year. Nissan even eked-out a 2.7 growth for April. Toyota is down 6.5 in April, but Toyota managers don’t miss a chance to mention that some of the problems are theirs, and that new product is needed and on its way.
As the table shows, some Japanese automakers wish they would be that lucky.
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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Wow! TTAC can see into the future now! I knew there ws a reason I keep coming back here. (You may delete this comment once you fix the error which I am not mentioning, after which point I'll just look silly.)
"Found around the corner from Toyota" Well, Bunkyo is quite a famous sanitation operation, Probably why they're just around the corner from Toyota HO. Prestige address and all that.
Not the most reliable method in simply comparing monthly sales volume to the corresponding month from the prior year. The Japanese are still down significantly YTD. Also, Hyundai is up significantly in China due to a new plant going online so it appears all the talk about them not benefiting from the anti-Japanese sentiment as GM and VW had done was due to capacity constraints.
Dont think they should un-cork the dom perignon yet. The real issue still hasn't been settled yet.