For the first time
ever, Suzuki is in third place in the Japanese domestic automotive
market trailing
behind Toyota and Nissan, overtaking Honda for combined sales of
light commercial
vehicles and passenger cars. As per the financial daily Nikkei
Shimbun, Suzuki sold
587,874 passenger cars and commercial vehicles, behind Toyota
(1,417,984) and
Nissan (670,096) and ahead of Honda (581,249) and Daihatsu (524,381)
between January and
October 2006.
So what made this
possible? Despite the Japanese economic recovery, regular car
sales are going
down. However it is interesting to note that there is a boom of
mini car or kei car
in Japan now. These are low cost tiny cars limited to 660 cc
engines. Suzuki,
Daihatsu and Mitsubishi are the only three companies producing
kei cars at the
present. Kei cars now account for 35% of unit sales in Japanç—´ 6
million a year car
market. A new kei car costs around one million yen ($9000). These
mini cars are
cheaper to produce and also receive tax benefits from the government.
Japanese people do
not want to pay more for luxurious cars nowadays as they look
at cars as a normal
commodity. As Suzuki is the leader in Kei cars, its domestic
sales overtook Honda
making it the third best automaker in Japanese domestic market
now. Suzuki success
in other countries such as India, Pakistan and Hungary is
also due to the low
cost mini cars it produces there. Next year Suzuki will launch
a compact MPV
(minivan) based on the Splash concept shown at the recent Paris motor
show.
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