Japan's new vehicle market continued to grow in September, by 3.9% to 495,189 units from 476,769 sales a year earlier, according to registration data released by the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association.
The continued positive market performance follows a strong second quarter for the Japanese economy with GDP growth at 2.5%, driven by a pick-up in consumer spending and investment growth.
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In the first nine months of the year, new vehicle sales increased by just over 7.5% to 4,060,584 units compared with 3,776,384 units in the same period of last year, reflecting particularly strong demand for passenger vehicles.
Passenger vehicle sales increased by 8.1% to 3,412,573 units in the nine month period, driven by strong demand for mini and subcompact models.
Truck sales increased by 4.6% to 635,201 units, while bus sales were 6.6% higher at 12,810 units.
Toyota's sales increased by 5.2% to 1,217,950 units in the January-September period followed by Honda in second place with a 2.8% increase to 552,181 units. Suzuki's sales amounted to 518,344 units (+7.8%); Nissan 496,295 units (+23.7%); Daihatsu 480,788 units (+8.5%); and Mazda 166,479 units (+3.1%).
