March Carnage In Japan
Toyota wasn’t the only Japanese manufacturer getting hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Toyota isn’t even the hardest hit – at least not in percentages.
Japanese output of the eight major Japanese carmakers’ plunged 57.5 percent in March from a year earlier to 387,567 units. That is some 465,000 units less than planned, The Nikkei [sub] reports. Here are the March Japan production numbers for the individual automakers:
- Toyota down 62.7 percent to 129,491 units.
- Honda down 62.9 percent to 34,754 units.
- Fuji Heavy down 64.9 percent to 16,530 units.
- Suzuki down 60.2 percent to 41,790 units.
- Daihatsu down 57.3 percent to 28,091 units.
- Mazda down 53.6 percent to 39,887 units.
- Nissan down 52.4 percent to 47,590 units.
- Mitsubishi down 25.7 percent to 49,434 units.
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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Ouch, poor Subaru.
How do thoroughly water-logged cars burn or even catch fire? Torched for the insurance?
Well, less cars for Toyota to recall. So its not all bad news. However its bad news for GM when they inevitably take the sales crown this year. GM will get no credit for topping sales this year, though they would have done so earthquake or not. TM was only 28,000 cars ahead of GM last year. GM was already gaining in 4Q 2010 with 100,000K more sales. For the first two months(Jan-Feb) of this year, GM sold 100,000 more cars globally than TM. GM outsold Toyota by ~200,000 units in the last 6 months excluding March ’11. Include March and the figure jumps to 312,000. GM’s growth is outpacing Toyota’s in the two largest car markets China, and US. Also, Japanese auto sales were way down pre-quake due to the govt subsidies ending. GM had no presence in Japan to be affected.