April imported car sales down 16%, and Dodge isn’t even here yet!

May 9, 2007
By Ken Worsley

Back in April, DaimlerChrysler Japan announced that it would be re-entering the Dodge brand into Japanese market from June 2007 with four autos: the Caliber, the Nitro, the Dodge Avenger and the Charger.

On April 11, president of DaimlerChrysler Japan Hans Tempel told the media in Tokyo:

The growth of international markets, including Japan, is extremely important for the accomplishment of the goal of regaining profitability for the Chrysler group.

The next day, on the BizCast Japan podcast, Albrecht Stahmer and I discussed why this was a bad idea: quite simply, sales of new cars have been down in Japan on a year-on-year basis for quite some time: Domestic car sales had been down 21 months in a row (now 22), and imported car sales had been down nine months in a row (now 10). Only the minicar market had been growing, and even that declined in April.

Yesterday the Japan Automobile Importers Association announced that sales of new imported cars had declined a whopping 16% in April when compared to April 2006. The top two import brands, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz, each posted double-digit declines: Volkswagen was down 23.2% and Mercedes slipped 26.3%.

By only seeing a decline of 11.1%, BMW passed Mercedes in terms of market share, and is now ranked second behind Volkswagen. Congratulations!

13,133 imported vehicles were sold in Japan in April.

So in June, when I go to test drive a Dodge, will they actually be there?

Filed Under Automotive, Business