23 September 2011

Toyota vs Nissan: Japan


Traditionally the big two car brands in Japan are Toyota and Nissan. In 1975 for example, their combined sales accounted for nearly 70% of the Japanese market! (See chart below). Understandably, that hasn't been maintained. In fact, Nissan has slipped to third occasionally of late; the italicised figures below show when on this chart that occurred. The 2011 sales figure is for the first six months of the year. All sales figures are in thousands, so please add three zeros:

Year       Toyota       Nissan
1970 709,000 29.8% 588,000 24.7%
1975 1,073,000 39.2% 856,000 29.4%
1980 1,064,000 37.3% 828,000 29.0%
1985 1,323,000 42.6% 781,000 25.2%
1990 1,893,000 37.1% 1,057,000 20.7%
1995 1,373,000 31.2% 827,000 14.0%
2000 1,216,000 28.5% 691,000 11.8%
2005 1,507,000 31.8% 744,000 15.7%
2010 1,415,000 33.6% 566,000 13.4%
2011 433,000 26.9% 244,000 15.1%

The 2011 figure is ugly for Toyota, although in any other context over a quarter of the market for a brand would be considered good. Nissan on the other hand is making a bit of a comeback with more interesting cars than many of its rivals.

When you add all the other Japanese brands to these two, you realise how insignificant import brands are in the country. With a mixture of crafty measures and strong loyalty, foreign makes remain on the periphery.


Figures: JAMA

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