In the first month of 2023, the three major Japanese automakers, namely Toyota Motor, Honda Motor, and Nissan Motor were all confronted with unsatisfactory sales results in China, especially the latter two companies, who saw their sales more than halved from a year ago. 

The year-on-year downturn in January marked the respective third, fifth, and sixth consecutive month for Toyota, Honda, and Nissan to sell less vehicles in the Chinese market than that of a year ago. 

The automakers explained that their sales cutback was a result of some objective factors like both the New Year’s holiday and the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday, leaving not enough workdays for their dealerships and consumers for transaction. 

The same phenomenon also showed in January sales of other domestic or international automakers in China. However, several local Chinese automakers still managed to defy the odds and scored a year-over-year increase in January sales, such as BYD (+58.6% YoY). 

Toyota Motor sold roughly 113,800 new vehicles in the world’s largest auto market in the past month, which indicated a 23.5% decline from a year earlier. Regarding sales performance of the company’s two Sino-Japanese joint ventures, FAW Toyota posted a 7.3% year-on-year growth in January sales due to the low base numbers achieved in January 2022 caused by the coronavirus. Meanwhile, GAC Toyota faced a 30.2% decrease in last month’s sales. 

January sales of Toyota’s high-end brand, Lexus, plummeted 62.4% from a year earlier in China, according to numbers provided by Japanese media, Kyodo. 

In the first month of this year, Honda Motor sold 64,193 vehicles in China, more than halved from that of the year-ago period. Among which, 11,158 units were electrified vehicles (EVs), which include hybrid electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and battery electric vehicles.

In terms of the separate performance of the company’s two Sino joint ventures, GAC Honda saw its monthly deliveries reach 40,284 units, which fell 49.6% from the earlier year and accounted for 62.75% of Honda’s China sales in January. Meanwhile, with 23,909 vehicles sold, Dongfeng Honda recorded a 64.1% plunge compared to a year ago. 

As to Nissan Motor, with 47,521 vehicles sold in China during the first month of 2023, the company saw a 64.4% plummet over January 2022. 

In the past month, Dongfeng Motor Co. & Ltd. (DFL), the joint venture between Dongfeng Motor and Nissan Motor, saw 45,623 vehicles sold through its passenger vehicle unit (including Nissan, Venucia, and Infiniti brands), which reflected a 59.02% dent year-over-year.

GAC Honda e:NP1; photo credit: GAC Honda

The overall sales downturn in the three Japanese automakers’ Chinese market performance might be attributed to their relatively unleashed potential in the EV territory, considering the otherwise blooming sales numbers of the dedicated Chinese EV maker, BYD. 

All three automakers made further measures to boost their respective electrification transition in the world’s largest auto market, with reinforced EV lineup and expanded EV production capacity.