Japan's New Car Sales Dropped 33.4 % in May

New car sales in Japan are showing some signs of recovery as the major manufacturers are getting their production levels back to normal quicker than previously expected.

Although May 2011’s new car sales in Japan were down 33.4% over the previous year, this represents a significant improvement on the drops seen in earlier months. In fact, when you consider that this time last year, new car sales were being artificially inflated by the Japanese government’s “EcoCar” incentive scheme, these latest figures do not seem as poor as an initial reading would suggest.

With Toyota and other manufacturers expecting to not only return to full capacity in the summer months, but also to add extra capacity as well as a big push with new models towards the end of the year and into 2012, it looks like the bounce-back from the economic downturn and the earthquake disaster could be significant.

Source: Nikkei (Japanese-language)