Japan car sales jump as industry recovers from tsunami

Toyota plant Some carmakers were forced to suspend production following the tsunami in March 2011

Car sales in Japan jumped by more than a quarter last year as the industry recovered from 2011's devastating earthquake and tsunami, figures show.

Sales of cars, trucks and buses rose by 26.1% to 3,390,274 in 2012, despite a fall in December, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association said.

State subsidies also helped to boost sales of environmentally-friendly cars.

Separately, three of Japan's biggest carmakers reported a fall in sales in China last year.

Political tensions

As a result of the tsunami in March 2011, a number of major carmakers were forced to suspend production.

However, they bounced back strongly last year, with domestic car sales up 26.3% to 3,014,651, and truck sales up 24.4%.

The small dip in sales in December was largely down to the end of government subsidies for eco-friendly cars, the association said.

Japan's carmakers fared less well in China in 2012.

Toyota said sales fell by almost 5% to 840,500, while Nissan saw a 5.3% drop to 1,181,500. Honda's sales slipped 3.1% to 598,576.

The carmakers said political tensions over a territorial dispute between Tokyo and Beijing had led to some consumers boycotting their products.

Nissan said: "The Sino-Japanese territorial disputes that began in September have seriously affected Nissan's sales and marketing activities in China."

More on This Story

Global Car Industry

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites

More Business stories

RSS

Features & Analysis

Elsewhere on the BBC

  • Green city A leaf from nature's book

    Cities rely on systems which pollute our world, but that will all change in the future, writes Rachel Armstrong

Programmes

  • A graphic of a person and the Earth respresenting the world wide webClick Watch

    David Reid visits Cern to find out about the plans to restore the world's first web page

BBC © 2013 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.

This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.