AID NEWSLETTER > ASIA
| |
JAPAN
|
H1
CAR MARKET In Japan the sales share of diesels is rising
Toyota remains the most successful carmaker. Now, that’s not a recent development. Despite bright new upstarts in the same field, such as Korea’s highly respected
Hyundai-Kia, in retrospect Toyota has held this coveted pedestal autoindustry position for
decades
|
|
| |
JAPAN
|
H1
CAR MARKET Japan world’s biggest market for home-grown petrol-electric hybrids
AID investigates this year’s Japanese car sales trends and finds that Toyota’s home market still stands out as the world’s way and ahead biggest market for petrol-electric hybrid
(HEVs) cars. Put into perspective, this first half Japan’s HEV market was more than three-times the size of its direct US HEV equivalent, which like Japan and Europe remains dominated by Toyota Group products
|
|
| |
TRADE | CHINA
China cuts duty on imported cars to 15%
China’s decision to counter threats of a potentially deeply damaging trade war with the US has ostensibly sparked a surprise Chinese move to cut its import tariff for fully assembled cars from 25% to 15% from July 1 this year
|
|
| |
JAPAN
|
H1
CAR MARKET
Signs of life spotted in Japan’s car market Like most of Western Europe, Japan’s car market looks like a mature and saturated market. And yet, after more than a decade of near stagnation, with annual car sales hovering around the 4.5 million annual domestic sales level, those looking close enough at latest Japanese car sales numbers will detect an extremely rare phenomenon: a rise in new car sales.
|
|
| |
SOUTH
KOREA Renewed fall in March points to cooler Korean car market
Hyundai-Kia, which has long enjoyed the benefits of a stranglehold presence in its tightly guarded South Korean domestic car market, may have lost some of its former tightly-held grip, but its more than 60 per cent home sales share of this year’s first quarter South Korean car market is likely seen with great envy by many of the world’s other leading carmakers
|
|
| |
JAPAN |
AID EXCLUSIVE
Japan – Global car hybrid capital?
Last year’s sales of Standard category cars rose by a trendbucking 10 per cent to 1.49 million units, boosting the sector share to 35.9 per cent, a new record for the sector, according to JADA numbers and AID research. Equally revealing, among last year’s top-five best selling cars were two hybrids. Apart from Toyota’s Prius in pole position, third slot in the league went to Toyota’s Aqua, the full hybrid version of a car sold in Europe as the Toyota
Yaris. The two Toyota model’s were split by Honda’s N-Box kei-car.
|
|
| |
WORLD
|
AID EXCLUSIVE
China, the US and Western Europe live up to autoindustry’s ‘pillars of strength’ reputation
Testament to their long-standing reputation as the autoindustry’s genuine powerhouse markets, last year’s combined new car sales in the still vibrant main markets of China, the US and Western Europe alone reached a record 54.3m cars, thus accounting for around eight-in-ten of last year’s global new car sales |
|
| |
WORLD
CAR SALES H1 |
AID EXCLUSIVE
Half-year global car sales rose for the seventh successive time in a row to a new all-time high for this particular 6-months spell, according to AID’s latest half-year statistical car sales supplement.
Unlike recent years, following the fallout from the global financial crisis, this year’s continuing growth in global new car sales is driven foremost by China, Western Europe and to a lessening extent by the US.
|
|
| |
SOUTH
KOREA
|
AID EXCLUSIVE
|
|
| |
PREMIUM
BRANDS | AID EXCLUSIVE
Testament
to Mercedes’ strapping good health and likely harbinger of
what the future holds in store, this April Mercedes set yet
another major milestone. Continuing to strengthen its
position in this year’s sharp elbowed Chinese premium car
market - until fairly recently the main engine of
profitability for Europe’s aristocratic old guard - this
April Mercedes nudged aside China’s long-standing number
two prestige carmaker BMW by the narrowest of margins. |
|
| |
JAPAN Nissan to acquire 34% of troubled Mitsubishi Motors Japan’s financially healthy Nissan, after first
catching Renault’s tossed lifeline back in 1999, now hopes to do the same for its troubled
Mitsubishi compatriot. Late last week Nissan said it will spend Yen237bn (€1.92bn) to buy
506.6 million newly issued shares in Mitsubishi Motors adding up to a controlling 34 per cent
stake. When the deal is fully ratified later this month, Nissan is given licence to nominate both
the chairman of Mitsubishi Motors and a third of its directors.
|
|
| |
JAPAN
|
AID EXCLUSIVE AID compiled figures reveal that apart from Japan, where Prius-type hybrids are already responsible for one-in-four new car sales, in other major global car markets such as China, Europe and the US, these initially promising looking petrol-electric hybrid cars - a sector dominated by Toyota - have clearly failed to get much traction. |
|
| |
WORLD
|
AID EXCLUSIVE
Almost a decade after the global financial crisis, and the subsequent car sales slump in key car sales regions such as Europe and the USA, the once fanciful idea of a quick return to car market normalisation may not have happened. However, and somewhat later than earlier expected, at long last global new car sales appear to have re-joined the market’s long-term intrinsic upward trajectory |
|
| |
SOUTH
KOREA |
AID EXCLUSIVE Bad news, it seems, travels fast. Germany’s scandal-rocket Volkswagen Group, already whacked by a massive recall of some diesel cars in the US and Europe, is now facing a similar fate in Korea. Echoing the humiliation and image-sapping accusation of cheating on a massive scale on US emission tests for some of its diesel cars, last week Volkswagen was also stung by a Won 14.1 billion (€11.5 million) fine in Korea, and ordered to recall some 125,000 diesel powered cars sold there
|
|
> | |
Toyota, with last year’s 10.1% operating margin, outshines all of Europe’s
aristocratic old guard
Mass market car maker Toyota - despite selling 10.23 million vehicles last year – reveals a level of profitability that most of the world’s leading prestige carmakers would happily chose to brag about. In terms of overall profitability, with a sky-high operating margin of 10.1 per cent during its last fiscal year, Toyota now belongs
to the prestige- rather than mass-market category.
|
|
|
> |
CHINA AID EXCLUSIVE |
Lull before the storms |
|
|
> | |
Baby Benz for China’s future |
|
|
> |
CHINA |
Excited by Crossovers of all sizes China’s SUV-Crossover segment stays on the boil - Ford sector sales drive > China’s most trendy motors |
|
|
> |
CHINA |
China’s car production at full throttle A vintage year for China’s car production after all - Crossovers surge ● China’s production growth figures the envy of the world |
|
|
> |
WORLD |
China and US offset flat or declining car production in Europe China’s production growth figures the envy of the world ● Editorial Iron Man of autoindustry exports |
|
|
> |
CHINA |
Back
on heat – can it last? |
|
|
|
> |
CHINA |
China’s
most trendy motors Race on for rich pickings in China’s booming SUV-Crossover market |
|
|
> |
CHINA |
Mercedes’ big catch-up drive |
|
|
> |
CHINA |
China’s
car sales look easy Summertime and China’s car sales look easy - Japan Blues persist |
|