Japan Automakers and Global Sales: Updated March 10, 2026.

Global sales for Japan automakers grow in Jan., Toyota record high

Article source:  https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20260226/p2g/00m/0bu/041000c

Ideas

The Japanese car industry, despite the appearance of eight Japanese automakers, is still a very competitive market as evidenced by the fact that there are only a few foreign car models in Japan.

With that said you would think that if the Japanese market is so competitive how can eight Japanese car companies survive. In reality 3 or 4 of the smaller car companies in Japan are subsidiaries of the larger car groups such as Toyota and Nissan but the smaller car companies still operate with a lot of independence.

As more countries and cities, such as in Japan and globally, create more electric charging stations in cities that make it more convenient, more and more hybrid cars are going to be produced and of course bought over time.

Demand might be some or a lot of demand now for more electric cars but the challenge is getting more electric charging stations set-up and even set-up in homes and other places that an electric vehicle can easily charge just like going to a gas station for a regular gas car.

For whatever reason, Toyota of course has built itself into the global leader and will continue to be the global leader outside of maybe Volkswagen or GM. 

It appears that maybe just maybe or maybe its only Toyota that the trade deficit that Japan has had with the EU might be lessening some but again it could just be Toyota only that is still having an impact in the EU market.

And China too, while not exactly that robust, the Chinese market might still be holding its own even there was a 2.7 percent decline in Japanese auto sales. The Chinese market is like the US market and even bigger in a geographic sense, a huge market and more and more Chinese are moving into the middle class and even upper-middle class and are looking for something besides their own home-grown brands.

Globally the car market is not ready for electric vehicles only as there is still a lot of resistance from the powerful oil lobbying groups and of course the infrastructure needed for car battery charging stations are not fully complete just yet, as it still going to take some time before, if ever, the electric car market overtakes the gasoline car market.

Car production or any production of products is never a complete linear upward process as there are always going to be some delays in production equipment breakdowns, equipment maintenance, supply chain disruptions, raw material supply disruptions and even the changing of models on a production line and even less working days for some facilities such as in Japan.

Car companies and manufacturing companies know this and have regular schedule down times as needed and also they anticipate that there are going to be glitches in the system and most likely never a full year of uninterrupted production of a product.

Ever since the Carlos Gohsn situation Nissan has had one bad situation after another but maybe just maybe they can see light at the end of the tunnel and they just beginning to get back to some kind of normalcy.

Nissan recently sold its huge global headquarters building to a Taiwanese company but leased it from them as it remains Nissan's global headquarters still in Yokohama Japan.

I have often used the Nissan building as a place to write, observe, and research as there is a Starbucks coffee shop with inside and outside chairs and tables for many people.

The Nissan global headquarters is adjacent near the Yokohama station area and can easily be reached with a walk-way connecting the Nissan building with Yokohama station.

Yes, again, ever since the Ghosn debacle the company has been underwater and is now beginning to finally come out of it but not before if accrues some more losses for this fiscal year.

Whether good or not so good all or many companies go through a streamlining of operations to get back to some kind of profitability and just like Japan Airlines some years ago it too had to streamline some of its operations to be get to a position of profitability.

And of course there is the Sony situation even before that as Sony seemed to either delay or try to avoid any changes needed to get it back to a level that is once was and there is some who might say it never did get back what is was in the early 90's or late 80's.

Suzuki, an independent Japanese car company does cooperate with Toyota on some projects but Toyota doesn't own anything related to Suzuki as they make their own vehicles and are big in the India market these days, as Suzuki has been able to carve out some important niche markers such as in India.

Daihatsu, however, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Toyota group but focuses on compact cars and has also created its own niche markets on other Asian countries such as Indonesia.

While Mitsubishi, while not a subsidiary of any other major Japanese car company group, it too as been able to carve out is own niche markets and niche brands, but it does have some kind of alliance with the Nissan group but is not a subsidiary owned by Nissan.

Yes, as usual the Chinese and EU markets are sometimes very sluggish but Honda as usual depended on the US market to lift it sales and even though the US tariff situation might still be there it doesn't seem to have hurt Honda sales too much.

However, Honda knows it can't rely on the US market alone for its sales or profitability as it needs to find ways to increase sales in China and the EU as soon as possible.

But again, Japan companies, for the most part, used to take a long-term approach and a quarter here or there of less than expected sales or profits was never a major concern. But those days might be long gone as they too might be subject to the whims of stockholders who want to see profits every quarter and not just once a year.

Both Subaru and Mazda are independent car makers but Toyota does have a small very small stake in both related to the sharing of technologies. But both again, like the other small car makers, have carved out their own niches and niches in other countries as they don't really compete directly with the larger car brands in Japan.

As the tariff situation with the US might be coming to an end or being reduced Mazda might begin to re-think its position and begin manufacturing in Mexico in the near future.

What is interesting about the Japanese car market and the Japanese market in general there doesn't seem to this sense of cut-throat competition that is prevalent in the US market and was very prevalent in years past. 

Japan car makers, whether true or not true, seem to have a cooperative relationship with each other while of course maintaining as sense of logical competition as needed to keep ahead of the curve.

All the Japanese car makers seem to have a kind of friendly working relationship with each other for the good of the Japanese economy and the good of all car companies in Japan.

Have a nice day!

Nissan Net Loss: Updated Nov. 10, 2025.

Nissan logs 221.92 bil yen net loss in April-Sept. on poor sales, tariffs

Article source: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20251106/p2g/00m/0bu/047000c

Ideas

Ever since the Carlos Ghosn situation, Nissan has been in some kind of crisis each year and hasn't been able to show any kind of momentum since the Ghosn era.

Not going to say Ghosn contributed to the downfall of Nissan other than the fact that Nissan grew a lot during the Ghosn era, and sometimes companies can actually grow too fast.

Its been one crisis after another and they just can't seem to get it together in Japan or globally for a long time.

As the article suggests they tried to make a deal with Honda to help itself, but it seemed Honda might have only want to actually take over Nissan completely with Nissan of course rejected.

Most likely, as with some or many Japanese companies, they wait until the last minute to make any changes needed and or admit there are any problems with the company.

To be a little more positive here, Nissan might have been doing everything correctly except maybe innovating its stock of cars that customers might have wanted to needed in the future.

Unfortunately, Toyota and Honda might have gotten the best of them and just had better cars over the last few years.

At the same time, at least in China, Chinese car makers are going all out with a new line of EV cars which some Japanese car makers have been a little behind in developing.

Yes, maybe Nissan, unfortunately needs to do some streamlining as maybe 17 factories might be too little now, especially if global demand for their cars are declining too much.

Of course don't like the idea of cutting too many jobs are these are real people with real families that are going to be affected a lot.

Hopefully Nissan is going to give their displaced workers a generous package to help them with the loss of a job and or maybe even allow them to move to other factors if jobs can be accommodated in the other factories.

The Nissan headquarters in Yokohama is a huge building and its very central or even connected to the Yokohama eki, or station, with a nice outside walking platform between the two places.

The Nissan building even has a Starbucks on the first floor, or did, as I would often go there to do my blog writing on some days. And as Nissan and Renault are sister companies, there were a lot of French workers at the Nissan world headquarters visiting Starbucks too.

All company CEO's always say the right things to keep their shareholders happy, and yes, maybe they are on track to reduce the workforce to help with profitability.

And yes, maybe they are on track to see an increase in the second half of 2025 or even 2026 they will see an increase in sales and even profitability.

Nissan maybe needs a new lineup of models and for sure both Toyota and Honda are bringing out new models and maybe some of the new models will be EV type cars and even hybrid type cars too.

It's interesting that maybe Nissan is not going to close any factories in Japan and only in other countries, or so it seems.

The problem these days, with most large companies is they have to be accountable for each quarter and not each year as it was back in the day.

So they have to plan from quarter to quarter and can never look long-term like companies used used to back in the day for many years, when companies could plan for years ahead but those days seem long gone, as shareholders, even in Japan want immediate results now.

As it has been suggested, Honda actually wanted more control of Nissan that maybe Nissan was willing to give them as Honda was in a better position financially as Nissan has been struggling in recent years.

While the initial deal or agreement might have fallen through that doesn't mean that negotiations are not on going as it seems all eight Japanese car companies have some kind of agreement with other Japanese cars companies on all kind of projects.

Its seems, and maybe Japanese car companies might be more cooperative with other car companies than maybe US cars companies that sometimes try to take a winner take all mindset while Japanese cars companies and maybe many European cars companies too see the need to cooperate whenever needed as each car company might have different skills sets and different technologies that can an benefit each car company and they see each other simply as competitors but sometimes partners too.

Have a nice day!

Toyota Global Sales: Updated Oct. 8, 2025.

Toyota global sales up 2.2% in Aug. on solid US demand

Article source:  https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20250929/p2g/00m/0bu/026000c

Ideas:

Perhaps in August sales were not affected by the tariff situation yet, as maybe companies either hasn't seen the tariffs and or have begun to absorb some of the tariff costs.

The Toyota Motor Corp. is a major economic driver of the Japanese economy and especially with exports to the US as either the largest or second largest economy in the world next to China.

Most likely, as the Toyota Motor Group is one of the largest auto companies in the world and probably has enough resources, if needed, to absorb the tariffs, but most likely they will deflect some or all of the tariffs to their auto dealers in the US and make the US dealers deal with the tariffs.

The reason for deflecting the tariff is to keep shareholders happy and make sure the profits and earnings are where shareholders want them to be and force the dealers to handle the tariff situation.

But that might be less sales in the US but it might not be a problem for the Toyota Motor Group as they might only be concerned with overall export sales to dealers in the US.

Car sales in the US might still be somewhat elastic or even inelastic meaning price may or may not be a major consideration for US consumers.

And it might be dis-heartening for T as imports from Japan continue to pour into the US as T is trying to reduce the trade deficit which is kind of like putting your finger into a leaking dike as the trade deficit is never going to be reduced as the US economy is just too big of an economy to go without imports from other countries.

As long as there is robust demand for Japanese car, especially Toyota cars, Toyota doesn't need to worry that much about the tariff situation. 

Yes, Toyota might see a slight drop in sales, eventually, and a slight drop in earnings, eventually, but Toyota might not be too concerned at this point.

The electric vehicle market in China is big and getting even bigger as there are a lot of Chinese companies now in direct competition with Japanese cars in China.

And Chinese government is trying to go all out to reduce car related pollution with the push toward environmentally friendly vehicles and many Japanese and European car dealers are making more cars that are environmentally friendly now.

This is a good example of how inter-connected the supply chains for car manufacturing is globally as tsunami warnings in or near Russia, whether car parts produced there or not, can cause ripples and delays in the supply chains for example from manufacturers in Hokkaido in the northern part of Japan.

Cars, much like smartphones have thousands of miniature parts and can potentially be produced anywhere in the world which makes the supply chain efficiency even more important these days.

Its much easier to produce in the US, not because of the tariff situation but because of the significant increase in shipping costs these days from Japan to the west coast of the US.

The decrease in production in China might be related to the competition of Chinese car manufactures gaining more of the Chinese market related to electric cars as the Chinese government probably give Chinese car makers subsidies to manufacture and sell electric cars now.

Yes, the certification scandal related some of the subsidiaries of the smaller car makers with Toyota might have slowed down production and the sales of the smaller car manufacturers but not seem to be back as full strength.

Nissan has dug itself into a huge hole and it's going to take some time before it can navigate itself out of the challenge its in now. It might see its sales and profits decrease for a year or two but once it sorts through the mess it should come out it with fewer problems.

And yes, Nissan too has taken advantage of the trend in China for more electric vehicles so they too has seen sales increase there.

Maybe the glory days or boom days or years for Japanese car manufacturers are over as more and more car manufacturers globally are making better cars that consumers globally want and need.

China, Indonesia, and Malaysia have growing middle class consumers who are looking for the best cars they can find and are not satisfied, these days with any of the cheaper cars that car makers might have given them in the past.

It's interesting that Japan has so many car manufacturers as it might have seven or eight companies but some of the smaller companies might actually be subsidiaries of the large companies of Toyota, Nissan, and Honda.

Its worth noting that that the larger car companies didn't resort to a zero sum game or force the smaller car companies out of business, as it seems the larger companies might have absorbed the smaller companies into their overall company portfolios.

This seem to make good business sense as why do companies force other companies out of business when it might be better to bring them into the larger company group and find ways to improve business for all concerned.

But the corporate structure and mindset of Japanese businesses and US businesses is much different as in Japan, companies might focus more on cooperation while in the US its an all or nothing approach especially when it comes to shareholders and what they want.

Every car market, globally, is going to have its ups and downs as some markets, such as the US might grow a lot in a quarter or year, while a market such as China might its grow be up and down depending on what the Chinese government it doing from day to day with relation to subsidies.

The positive side is when one market is down its possible other markets might be up, so its good for Japanese car companies to be in as many markets as possible with efficient supply chains for the markets and the car manufacturers.

Have a nice day!

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