Japans Auto Industry feeling crook

[ozpont]

This is not great news in the "world market" as home sales in Japan are a prompt for higher sales efforts overseas...

Auto Sales in Japan Drop to a 35-Year Low
By YOSHIO TAKAHASHI
January 8, 2008; Page A18 / WSJ

TOKYO -- Japan's domestic auto sales fell to a 35-year low last year amid high gasoline prices and the country's shrinking population.

Sales of new cars, trucks and buses declined 7.6% to 3.434 million vehicles in 2007, the Japan Automobile Dealers' Association said. That was the fourth straight yearly decline and marked the lowest level since 1972, when sales totaled 3.406 million vehicles. The sales figures don't include minicars or minitrucks.

The data show that the world's third-biggest auto market is finding it hard to recover despite efforts by some Japanese car makers to spark demand with new models. Toyota Motor Corp., for instance, has introduced nine models since last May, but the company estimates that its domestic sales fell 6% in 2007.

The outlook for the domestic market remains gloomy. This year's auto sales, including sales of minivehicles, are forecast to fall 1.2% to about 5.319 million vehicles, according to the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, an industry group. It expects sales excluding minivehicles to fall 0.2% to 3.427 million this year.

Meanwhile, new-vehicle sales in December fell 7.1% from a year earlier to 236,142 vehicles, down for the first time in three months, the Japan Automobile Dealers' Association said.