Top 4 Japanese automakers by China sales in October

Nissan and Mazda faced year-on-year (YoY) downturn in Oct. sales, affected by China's overall stagnant auto climate. Honda seems to get rid of the negative impact from the haunting CR-V engine issue with its Oct. sales edging up 3.1% YoY. In addition, Toyota boasted a double-digit YoY increase in both Oct. sales and year-to-date (YTD) sales thanks to the tariff reduction policy. 

Nissan

Nissan saw its China sales fell 5.5% year on year (YoY) to 142,078 units (including PVs, light CVs and imported vehicles) in October. The sales of the PV unit declined 6.9% over a year ago to 118,006 units, among which 107,001 units from Dongfeng Nissan and 11,005 units from Dongfeng Venucia.

For the first ten months, the Japanese automaker's sales in China totaled 1,237,656 units, up by 5.8% from the previous year. Its PV unit made a major contribution to the overall performance with the sales aggregating 1,032,676 units. To be specific, Dongfeng Nissan and Dongfeng Venucia saw their Jan-Oct sales grew 6.5% and 4.9% YoY respectively to 921,309 units and 111,367 units.

As to the performance of each model under Dongfeng Nissan, the Sylphy sedan, with 40,059 units delivered in October and 354,565 units sold (up by 8.3% YoY) from January to October, was the biggest growth point for the automaker. Besides, the joint venture had a total of 43,777 SUVs sold in October. The SUV sales driver was the X-TRAIL whose sales reached 18,947 units last month and evidently grew 13.1% from a year earlier to 164,879 units so far this year.

The Venucia D60, with 5,506 units sold in October, was the hottest seller for Dongfeng Venucia.

Honda

Honda Motor posts a year-on-year (YoY) sales growth of 3.1% with 138,666 vehicles delivered in China last month. For the first ten months, the Japanese automaker sold 1,103,670 vehicles in this country, which was 5.8% less than that of the previous year.

In October, GAC Honda came across a YoY drop of 4.2% with its sales totaling 67,285 units. The sales of Honda branded cars reached 66,358 units, falling 3.3% over a year ago. Over half models witnessed YoY drop in monthly sales. Especially, the sales of the VEZEL, one of the three models whose October sales exceeding 10,000 units, slid 14.3% from the previous year. However, the Accord and the Fit, the other two models with 10,000 units-plus monthly sales, had YoY sales jump of 34.4% and 29.3% respectively.

After suffering YoY decline in monthly sales for 8 consecutive months since the CR-V engine issue was broke out, Dongfeng Honda achieved an evident YoY growth of 11.2% with 71,381 vehicles handed over last month. It is noteworthy that the INSPIRE all-new sedan, who hit the market on October 25, has had a sales volume of 51 units. We shall wait to see how it performs on market in the future.

Toyota

Toyota announced that its car sales in China jumped 19.5% over a year ago to 134,600 units last month. Besides, the YTD sales totaled 1,216,100 units for the automaker, rising around 14% compared with the year-ago period.

The upward sales performance was largely benefitted from China's import tariff cut policy, which helped the premium car brand Lexus gain a YoY growth of 18.0% in October.

As for the Oct. sales of specific models, the sales of the Camry amounted to 14,400 units; the sales of the Highlander and the Levin surged 37% and 15.9% respectively from the previous year to 9,935 units and 17,700 units. Meanwhile, 4,845 CH-Rs were sold last month.

Mazda

Mazda Motor (China) Co., Ltd. announced that its retail sales in China declined 4.2% compared with the same period a year ago to 232,596 units for the first ten months. Besides, the automaker saw its sales plunge 25.3% over the previous year to 21,881 units in the country.

As to the performance of two joint ventures from January to October, FAW Mazda handed over 92,435 vehicles with a year-on-year (YoY) drop of 7.1% and Changan Mazda also faced a YoY decrease of 2.2% with 140,161 vehicles delivered in total.

By the end of October, Mazda has been suffering YoY drop in monthly sales from 6 consecutive months, according to the sales of previous months compiled by Gasgoo.

Changan Mazda will showcase the Mazda CX-8 7-seat 3-row SUV at the upcoming Guangzhou International Automobile Exhibition. In addition, FAW Mazda will also bring the all-new 2.5L version of the Mazda CX-4 in the show.