Japanese automakers’ May global output down 63% on year

Japan’s eight major automakers posted their May production fell 62.8% on year or 1% on month to 912,377 units in total from all of their global plants, Mysteel Global calculated basing on their individual releases on June 29, which was mainly due to the negative impact of the COVID-19 on their operations and market demand, according to market sources.

Of the eight manufactures such as Toyota Motor, Honda Motor, and Nissan Motor, Subaru Corp. posted the steepest on-year decline in May, while Toyota, the top auto manufacturer, posted declines both on year and on month.

Japan’s eight automakers’ May production worldwide

Company	Volume (unit)	Y-o-Y	M-o-M
Toyota	365,909	-54.4%	-3.5%
Honda	221,601	-51.8%	1.8%
Nissan	156,898	-62.6%	4.3%
Daihatsu	36,336	-69.8%	-33.6%
Mazda	43,360	-62.9%	20.9%
Mitsubishi	22,990	-77.6%	-33.3%
Suzuki	49,221	-71.4%	44.7%
Subaru	16,062	-82.2%	7.7%
Total	912,377	-62.8%	-1.0%

Source: company releases

An auto sheet trader in Tokyo expressed little surprise at the results, commenting that many countries were still under the pandemic attack in May, and auto producers had to step on the brakes.

“China was probably the only country that had its automakers gradually return to normal operations, but that was insufficient to offset declines in other countries,” he said, expecting, however, that auto production should show some improvement starting June when many countries have restarted their economic activities including auto manufacturing

A sales official from a major auto parts maker in Nagoya, central Japan pointed out that global auto demand seemed to have not dropped as steeply as feared.

“Toyota Motor’s global sales in May had shown some recovery,led mainly by China, and demand in other countries will probably revive in the following months, and hopefully steel demand from auto sector will also benefit from the better auto sales gradually,” he said.

Toyota Motor posted its May global auto sales at 576,508 units, down 32% on year but up 36.2% on month, and the drop was also less steep than the 46% on-year decline in April, and among the total, domestic sales fell 33% on year but up 36% from April to 83,494 units, and overseas sales dropped by 32% on year but up 51% on month to 493,014 units, according to the company.

No latest statistics on ordinary steel booking by the Japanese auto sector for May is available yet, but for April, the orders totaled 390,599 tonnes, down 49.1% on year and or 37.1% lower on month, and special steel orders fell 39.8% on year and down 42.4% on month to 191,305 tonnes, as reported.

Written by Yoko Manabe, yoko.manabe@mysteel.com

Edited by Hongmei Li, li.hongmei@mysteel.com