Life & Style | Motoring

Honda and Toyota lead decline in vehicle sales

Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., Japan's two biggest carmakers, led a drop in the country's auto sales last month as a recession cut wages and crippled consumer demand.

  • Bloomberg
  • Published: 10:45 January 5, 2009
  • Gulf News

Tokyo: Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., Japan's two biggest carmakers, led a drop in the country's auto sales last month as a recession cut wages and crippled consumer demand.

Sales of vehicles fell 22 per cent to 183,549 vehicles last month, excluding minicars, the Tokyo-based Japan Automobile Dealers Association said in a statement on Monday.

For the year, sales plunged 6.5 per cent to 3.21 million units.

Toyota forecast its first operating loss in 71 years as sales crater in the US, Japan and Europe.

Spending on new cars in Japan has dropped as the country's jobless rate climbed to 3.9 per cent from 3.7 per cent in November.

Toyota is down 17 per cent and sales at Honda Motor Co. dropped 25 per cent to 27,505 units.

Sales at Nissan Motor Co., Japan's third-largest automaker, fell 22 per cent to 26,934 vehicles last month.

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