AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)06/04 Report--

New car sales in Japan fell 18.1 per cent year-on-year to 261100 in May, according to the Japan Federation of Automobile sales Associations and the National Federation of Mini Automobile Associations. Judging from the situation of various car companies, in addition to Mitsubishi Motors, the sales volume of Japan's eight major car companies all showed a decline compared with the same period last year. Of these, Toyota sold 86500 vehicles, down 20.9 percent from the same period last year; Suzuki sold 6741 vehicles, down 10.9 percent; Subaru sold 3480 vehicles, down 27.5 percent; Mazda sold 3332 vehicles, down 49.3 percent from the same period last year; Lexus sold 3103 vehicles, down 30.8 percent from the same period last year; and Dafa sold 1812 vehicles, down 30.1 percent from the same period last year.

In addition to Japan's domestic and foreign, the performance of Japanese car companies in the US market is not optimistic. This week, five Japanese automakers have released sales data in the United States, but the results have been disappointing. Of these, Honda sold 7.55 vehicles, down 57.3% from the same period last year; Toyota sold 176000 vehicles, down 27.3% from the same period last year; Mazda sold 15300 vehicles, down 63.7% from the same period last year; Subaru sold 42500 vehicles, down 24.8% from the same period last year; in addition, Ford sold 154400 vehicles, down 4.5% from the same period last year.

According to the data, the top three markets of global car sales in 2021 are China, the United States and Japan, with annual sales of 21.482 million, 14.947 million and 4.448 million respectively. Take the Japanese and American markets as an example, although only some car companies have announced their market performance in Japan and the United States, it is sufficient to prove that household purchasing power has shrunk significantly under the influence of inflation, parts shortage, skyrocketing oil prices and other factors. Of course, the same is true of China, as the world's primary market. The domestic passenger car market retailed 780000 vehicles from May 1 to 22, down 16% from a year earlier, according to the Federation of passengers.

Inflation is the main factor restricting consumers from buying cars. Since the beginning of this year, inflation in the United States has remained high, and soaring prices have led to a sharp rise in the cost of living, forcing consumers to reduce consumption of durable goods such as cars. On June 3, Mr Musk, chief executive of Tesla, said Tesla needed to cut jobs by about 10 per cent because of a "super bad feeling" about the economy. On the same day, US President Joe Biden delivered a speech on the US jobs report for May in Delaware, saying that fighting inflation is his top economic priority and that Americans should have confidence in the economy. At the same time, when asked about Musk's comments, Biden retorted: "while Musk is talking about this issue, Ford is investing significantly and will add about 6200 union jobs in the Midwest."

Like China, high oil prices in the United States have greatly limited people's desire to buy cars. Us gasoline prices hit a record high on May 31st, averaging $4.622 a gallon, up about 52 per cent from the same period last year, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). Although the United States has used its strategic oil reserves to try to depress oil prices, it has had little effect.

Us President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that there is no way for the United States to significantly reduce gasoline prices and is considering other proposals, such as trying to set a lower price for Russian crude oil so that it can enter the market. Dan Brulette, a former US energy secretary, warned that oil demand in some countries had fallen because of the blockade of the epidemic. Once this demand "returns to the market", if the government does not increase domestic oil production, Americans will once again feel the pain of rising gasoline prices.

In addition, the shortage of parts greatly limits the production capacity of carmakers, and the problem of "money can't buy a car" occurs from time to time. Toyota, for example, announced production cuts twice in a week on May 24 and May 27, respectively. Among them, Toyota decided to suspend the operation of some local factories in Japan on June 6th. the suspension reduced production by about 50, 000 vehicles to 800000 in June, of which about 200000 were planned for the Japanese market and 600000 for overseas markets.

With the exception of Japan and the United States, the global auto market is basically in a state of decline. New car sales in France, for example, fell 10.1 per cent to 126800 in May, while Italian car sales fell 15.1 per cent to 121300 from a year earlier. From the perspective of the global market, the epidemic has repeatedly led to the suspension and reduction of production in some automobile and supply chain factories, and the continuous rise in the prices of raw materials such as chips, steel, aluminum, batteries and so on. At the same time, due to the more complex and severe international environment and the obvious impact of the domestic epidemic, the downward pressure on the economy has further increased, and the situation of weak consumer demand is more obvious. However, compared with the global market, in order to boost the car market, the state has introduced relevant policies to promote automobile consumption, and various local rescue policies have been introduced intensively, through the issuance of car consumption coupons, lottery and other ways to increase car consumption, to a certain extent, ease the pressure on consumers to buy, while the sales of most automobile companies are rising month-on-month, showing signs that the market is picking up.

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