Japanese carmakers suffer 11.5% sales decline in 2020

Japanese automakers sold 4,598,615 new cars in 2020, slumping by 11.5 percent from a year earlier, to mark the largest decline since 2011.

The cars sold includes 1, 718,088 mini-vehicles with engines of up to 660 cc, which as a category also went down 10.1 percent on-year.

Excluding mini-vehicles from the total, sales would have dropped 2.3 percent to 2,880,527 units.

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. posted the worst domestic sales decline in 2020 among Japanese carmakers at 41.3 percent on-year, followed by Nissan Motor Co., which suffered a 27.5 percent fall.

Toyota Motor Corp. dealt with a 5.8 percent drop.

The other automakers include Honda Motor Co. Mazda Motor Corp., Suzuki Motor Corp. and Toyota subsidiary Daihatsu Motor Co.

Car sales picked up after a slump in the spring of 2020 when Japan was under a state of emergency over the novel coronavirus.

Car sales usually increase toward April, when a new business and school calendar begins in the country.

The outlook for Japanese carmakers remains uncertain in 2021 as the government is planning to declare another state of emergency due to the pandemic.