AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)08/05 Report--

Since the car market rebounded in March this year, the domestic car market has shown signs of year-on-year growth from April to June. Although July is the traditional off-season, the Federation of passengers is expected to achieve the trend of year-on-year growth in July due to a low base in the same period last year. Honda, Toyota, Nissan and Mazda, which are the mainstream Japanese car companies, have all disclosed the latest sales figures.

Last year, Toyota and Honda both bucked the trend in China, while Nissan and Mazda declined. Among them, the Honda brand with the highest year-on-year growth far surpassed the Toyota and Nissan brands to become the top seller in China last year. However, in 2020, Honda was greatly affected by the epidemic, and its sales declined much more than Toyota's, so that its cumulative sales in China this year lagged behind Toyota's. Toyota alone has achieved full-year sales growth through months of sales growth this year, while Honda, Nissan and Mazda brands are still in decline.

According to Toyota's latest sales figures, its Chinese market sold a total of 165600 new cars in July, up 19.1% from a year earlier, surpassing the previous year for four consecutive months and hitting a new high in July. Cumulative sales in China reached 918700 in the first seven months of this year, which is far more than most car companies that are still in negative growth, although the 1.1 per cent year-on-year increase is modest.

Toyota's new car sales in China fell 70.2 per cent year-on-year in February, when the epidemic was severe, but as sales recovered, they grew for four consecutive months from April to July, with sales from May to July all about 20 per cent higher than the previous year. It is worth noting that thanks to the recovery of the domestic market, Toyota's high-end brand Lexus also surged year-on-year in July, reaching 38.6%, and also achieved sales growth for many months in a row, becoming the top-selling second-tier luxury brand for work. to support Toyota's performance in China.

By contrast, the performance of the Honda brand this year is relatively pessimistic. Affected by various factors, Honda still did not achieve sales growth in the environment of strong market recovery in the past few months, basically declining every month for half a year. Growth was 9.8% in January, 85% in February, 50.8% in March, 10% in April, 1.7% in May and 4.1% in June. It is arguably the worst-performing Japanese brand in the first half of this year, perhaps because Honda's strong performance in 2019 led to a high base and the impact of the epidemic so much that sales could not rise.

It was not until July this year that sales increased after a five-month interval. Specific figures show that Honda sold 136646 vehicles in July, up 17.8 per cent from a year earlier. Among them, Guangzhou Auto Honda sold 69187 vehicles, Dongfeng Honda sold 67459 vehicles, and accumulated sales of 748653 vehicles from January to July 2020, down 13.1% from the same period a year earlier. Among them, Guangzhou Auto Honda sold 384219 vehicles and Dongfeng Honda sold 364434 vehicles.

It is worth noting that under the support of a number of Honda's best-selling models this year, seven models have sold more than 10, 000 models, among which Guangzhou Auto Honda Haoying, which experienced the collision test in Baoyan, surpassed Dongfeng Honda CR-V with sales of more than 20, 000 units in June, becoming the top seller of the joint venture SUV.

Although the Mazda brand is a minority Japanese brand in China, it continued the growth trend of June in July this year. According to the data, cumulative sales in China in July were 17750, up 4.10 per cent from a year earlier. From January to July, cumulative sales were 115080, down 6.74 per cent from a year earlier. But because June was the last month of the first half and the last month for automakers to boost their performance, Mazda fell 16 per cent in July from a month earlier.

As can be seen from the specific model data disclosed by Mazda, FAW Mazda has no longer disclosed the sales of Atez models since June. I do not know whether it is because the Atz model has suffered frequent "abnormal noise" incidents in recent months, which has been complained by many car owners and appeared on the complaint list for several months in a row, so that the sales are not "beautiful".

At the same time, Nissan China later released sales figures in China, which reached 120945 units in July, an increase of 11.6% over the same period last year, and achieved double-digit growth for the first time while rebounding for five consecutive months. From January to July, Nissan's cumulative sales in China reached 717287 units, down 13.2% from the same period last year, and the gap between cumulative sales and the same period last year is gradually narrowing.

Despite the traditional off-season, Nissan China and its passenger and light commercial vehicle divisions, Dongfeng Nissan, Zhengzhou Nissan and Dongfeng Motor Co., all posted sales growth this month. Meanwhile, Nissan China, Dongfeng Nissan and Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd. all recorded their best sales in July.

Looking at the performance of Japanese mainstream car companies in July this year, although the market has entered the traditional off-season, thanks to the continued recovery in the domestic market, the sales of the three major Japanese brands have all increased, which also means that Japanese brands are still the main force of joint venture brands in China. However, the Circulation Association expects the car market to show a seasonal decline in August, and sales may decline, so it is still expected that several more Japanese brands will continue to grow in August.

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