AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)01/09 Report--

2019 has passed, many car companies have released year-end sales data, in all brands, Japanese brands have become the "focus". Led by Toyota, Honda and Nissan, the number of Japanese brands in China exceeded 5 million for the first time to 5.085 million, an increase of about 4 per cent from 2018, and that number even matched the number of new cars in the local market.

In terms of brand segmentation, Toyota surpassed Nissan to become the top seller in Japan this year, with sales of 1.62 million new cars in China in 2019, an increase of 9% year-on-year when the car market was not as expected. Toyota exceeded Toyota's annual sales target of 1.6 million vehicles in 2019.

Among them, FAW Toyota sold 737500 new cars for the whole year, up 2 per cent year-on-year compared with 2018. GAC Toyota sold 682008 vehicles in 2019, an increase of 18% over the same period last year. Cumulative sales have become the best performance of the Toyota brand in the history of the Chinese market, regaining the title again after 11 years.

Honda sold 1554433 new cars in China in 2019, an increase of 122142 over the same period last year and an 8.5 per cent increase over the same period last year, setting a record for Honda's annual sales in China. Among them, Guangzhou Auto Honda sold 765517 vehicles in 2019, up 4.1% from the same period last year, while Dongfeng Honda sold 788916 vehicles, up 13.2% from the same period last year. Its Civic, CR-V, XR-V, Accord, Ling Pai, colorful Intelligence and Feido seven models have annual sales of more than 100000 vehicles. Although Accord experienced the "stall door" incident during the period, sales continued to grow steadily.

Nissan, which has been the top seller of Japanese cars in China since 2009, has not performed well this year, with sales falling, falling 1.1 per cent to 1546891 units for the whole year, as well as failing to maintain the top spot. Of this total, the passenger car sector of Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd. (including Dongfeng Nissan and Dongfeng Qichen) sold 1293086 vehicles for the year, down 0.6 per cent from the same period last year. The light commercial vehicle sector, which includes Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd. and Zhengzhou Nissan, sold 213129 vehicles for the year, down 1.8 per cent from a year earlier. Affected by the former Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn incident, Nissan's global sales can only be supported by the Chinese market.

Mazda and Mitsubishi, both Japanese brands, can only become a niche market in China, with cumulative annual sales of 227800 and 136200 respectively, of which Mazda declined year on year for two consecutive years, reaching 16.3%. Only 85% of the 270000 sales target set at the beginning of the year, while Mitsubishi achieved 3.5% year-on-year growth.

Although Japanese brands do not account for the largest proportion in China, according to the latest data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, Japanese brands accounted for about 21.6% of the domestic market in November 2019, with domestic brands accounting for 38.9% and German brands for 24.3%. However, it is worth noting that compared with many domestic independent brands, the number of Japanese brands is not large, compared with sustained and stable German brands, the proportion of Japanese brands is further expanding.

As for the rising sales of Japanese brands this year, Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the National passenger car Market Information Association, once said, "as the Japanese brand 'national six' models are well prepared, they have the first opportunity to switch between 'national five' and 'national sixth' in the middle of the year." In addition, he believes that consumers' concept of consumption has changed, people in line with the idea of "living", so that the trend of Japanese brands at the end of the year is relatively stable.

According to the 2019 auto market forecast released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, car sales in China are expected to be 25.83 million units in 2019, down 8 per cent from the same period last year. As January falls in the traditional Spring Festival in China, the number of working days decreases accordingly, and sales in January 2020 are expected to decline significantly compared with December 2019.

Generally speaking, whether the Japanese brands are accelerating the launch of new models in 2019, or the special models built for the domestic market, we can see that Japanese brands are gradually paying attention to and speeding up the pace of the domestic market.

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