Sales of Nissan and Honda slide further in China

Sales of Japanese carmakers Nissan Motor and Honda Motor on the mainland slumped again last month amid intense competition from Western marques in a weakening economy.

The sales of Nissan and its mainland joint-venture partner dropped 11.8 per cent to 116,200 vehicles from a year ago, the Japanese firm said yesterday. The drop followed a 9 per cent decrease in October and a 20 per cent fall in September.

Sales for the first 11 months of this year are up by just 1.7 per cent at about 1.1 million units, compared with a full-year growth of 17.2 per cent last year.

Nissan blamed the sluggish sales on economic weakness and competition in the compact car segment. The carmaker last month cut its mainland sales target for this year to 1.27 million vehicles from 1.4 million.

Honda and its Chinese venture last month sold 72,973 vehicles, a 12.1 per cent decrease from the same period last year.

Sales in the 11 months fell 1.4 per cent to 646,127 units. It had posted a full-year growth of 9.2 per cent last year.

Honda has also slashed its China sales target, by 11 per cent to 800,000 vehicles, after a 5.8 per cent year-on-year decline in October.