Toyota Motor Corporation has again seen a decline in sales. Some time ago there was a slight improvement in the company’s sales due to decline in Japan and China. Now after these improvements have stopped, Toyota Motor Corporation’s sales have declined again. Toyota’s domestic scandals and overseas recalls disrupted production.
The company informed on Friday that there has been a decline in global production at its subsidiaries Daihatsu Motor Company and Hino Motors Limited. Production declined 12.6% to 808,023 units in August from a year earlier, while global sales declined 3.7% year-on-year after a 0.7% increase in July, according to the company.
Toyota sales in Japan have seen a decline of more than nine percent. The reason behind this is said to be that due to the delayed impact of recent scandals related to forgery of vehicle safety certificates, the country’s major carmakers have had to suspend production of the affected models.
The demand for electric vehicles has been decreasing for some time. Due to this, the popularity of the company’s hybrid gas-electric cars has increased again. However, a global slowdown in new car sales and intense competition in China are putting pressure on the world’s largest carmaker. Some models, such as the Granvia minivan, have become popular in China. At the same time, Toyota sales in the country declined by 13.5% to 152,065 units in August. Its market share is in danger of decreasing further due to the ongoing price war with companies like BYD Company.
Due to the decline in demand for electric vehicles, some of the world’s largest automakers have reduced their electrification targets. A Nikkei report last month said Toyota had cut its annual sales target for 2026 from 1.5 million battery EVs to 1 million.
Toyota sold 12,682 battery EVs in August, all but 119 of which were sold outside Japan. Meanwhile, it sold 336,848 hybrids that month, up 22% from last year. The adoption of electric vehicles has been slow in the island nation compared to other major markets due to the dominance of hybrid and gas-powered cars. The carmaker’s operating profit for the quarter ended in June was ¥1.31 trillion, up 17% from a year earlier. Its hybrid variants are performing well in North America and the weak yen is helping it generate revenues from abroad.
Honda Motor Co saw global production in August decline 11.3% from a year earlier to 307,870 units. Its output fell more than 29% in China, where it recently cut jobs and suspended production at three plants. The Japanese carmaker said in July it was cutting gasoline-car manufacturing by 19% as it looks to accelerate its shift toward electric vehicles.
Honda’s global sales declined 4.7% to 309,477 units. Nissan Motor Co’s production last month fell 15.5% year-on-year to 236,016 units, while sales fell 5.5% to 244,279 units. On Thursday, it announced plans to buy back ¥79.9 billion ($551 million) worth of its shares from French carmaker Renault SA as the two try to rebalance their business partnership.
