Shanghai (ZXZC)- ZXZC compiles the sales performances released by four major Japanese automakers and notices an interesting phenomenon: the one who gets better sales performance enjoys better sale growth rate.

Toyota

Toyota, surpassing Nissan and Honda, gained the championship in terms of Japanese automakers' January sales in China. It's deliveries in China jumped 15.3% year on year to 147,100 units, achieving positive growth for 11 consecutive months.

The Corolla was still the hottest-selling model. Last month, the sales of the Corolla edged down 2.4% over the year-ago period to 32,500 units. The Camry had a YoY sales surge of 81.4% with 17,400 vehicles delivered after its product changeover was launched.

Thanks to the imported tariff slash policy coming into force last year, Lexus, the Toyota-owned premium car brand, saw its sales keep rising in this country. In January, its sales in China climbed 5.3% from the previous year to 14,403 units, among which 32.7% of sales came from the Lexus Hybrids series.

Honda

The runner-up Honda delivered 136,483 vehicles in China, a YoY growth of 8.2%, recording a new-high performance in January sales for its Chinese market.

Both joint ventures achieved blooming outset in 2019 as well. GAC Honda saw its monthly deliveries rose 7% from a year ago to 75,792 units, while Dongfeng Honda also gained a YoY increase of 9.6% with 60,691 vehicles handed over in total.

A total of 7 models got their respective sales exceeding 10,000 units in January, namely, the ACCORD, the CIVIC, the CR-V, the CRIDER, the FIT, the VEZEL and the XR-V.

To be specific, GAC Honda-owned ACCORD, with 23,649 units delivered, had a YoY sales jump of 24.9%. In addition, the deliveries of the CR-V climbed 14.2% year on year to 15,711 units, among which the sales of the CR-V HYBRID skyrocketed 88.5% to 2,094 units. The other Dongfeng Honda's model, the CIVIC, had a sales volume of 19,283 units with a remarkable YoY growth of 45.7%.

Nissan

Nissan had long occupied the No.1 place in China sales, while it dropped two places last month with its monthly delivery volume slightly falling 0.8% to 133,934 units.

Dongfeng Nissan still maintained a positive increase of 2.0% with 100,234 vehicles sold in January. Nevertheless, it failed to offset the sales decrease made by Dongfeng Venucia whose Jan. sales slid to 13,466 units.

As to light commercial vehicle business, the sales of Dongfeng Automobile Co., Ltd. and Zhengzhou Nissan aggregated 17,259 units with a YoY increase of 4.5%.

Once again, the Sylphy was honored Nissan's best seller in China. The model's sales soared 37.4% from a year ago to 42,188 units, almost making up one third of total Nissan's China sales.

Mazda

Mazda continued a relatively weak performance from 2018. In January, the automaker saw its sales plunged 32.7% to 22,844 units, the fifth month in a row that suffered negative growth. The respective sales of FAW Mazda and Changan Mazda were 7,016 units and 15,828 units.