Asian automakers, led by Japan's Toyota Motor Corp, Honda Motor Co and Nissan Motor Co, raised US market share to a record in August, emphasizing new models over incentives, analysts said. Toyota outsold DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler for the first time.
Total new-vehicle sales fell 0.8 percent from a year ago to 1.63 million, with Asia-based brands posting an 8 percent gain to 577,570, according to Autodata Corp. The 10 Asian automakers that compete in the US raised their combined share to 35.4 percent in August, a record for a single month, Autodata said.
The gains came from new or redesigned products, including Toyota's Sienna minivan and 4Runner sport-utility, Honda's Element and Pilot light trucks and Nissan's Quest minivan and Murano and Infiniti FX sport-utilities, analysts said. As a result all three companies were able to offer incentives at least a third less generous than US competitors.
"It's a combination of product and strong brand image," said Wes Brown, an auto analyst at marketing consultant Nextrend.
"The real product onslaught over the last few years has been from import brands who keep gaining incremental sales by entering new segments and keep refreshing their existing products at a faster pace" than US-based competitors.
Toyota, fourth in US sales, said demand for its vehicles rose 11 percent to 200,482, surpassing Chrysler for the first time. Honda, No. 5 in the US, also posted an 11 percent gain, and Nissan's sales rose 14 percent. Sales for General Motors Corp fell 0.5 percent, Ford Motor Co posted a 12 percent drop and Chrysler said its sales declined 6.4 percent.
Toyota outselling Chrysler is "a big deal, but not really a surprise given the current sales trend," said Ken Yamada, senior analyst for Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC, which manages US$9 billion, including Toyota shares. Toyota's gains aren't "achieved by extraordinary activities; it's the quality of their product and the cost of their vehicles."
Toyota, Japan's largest automaker, sold 200,482 Toyota-brand and Lexus luxury cars and trucks last month. Its market share climbed 0.9 percentage point to 12.3 percent last month, its highest since entering the US market.
Honda's combined sales of Honda and Acura vehicles totaled 147,253, its best ever.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
RSS