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Japan’s Per Household Car Ownership Down in 2006

August 20, 2007
By Ken Worsley


Quick trivia: Which of Japan’s prefectures have the lowest rates of per household car ownership?

A few weeks ago, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association announced that new car, bus and truck sales in Japan had fallen yet again in July, showing a 10.4% decline versus July 2006. This was the 25th consecutive month of decline.

After having blogged these sales results for six straight months, I skipped it this time; perhaps the market really is that far gone. But today, something new emerged: According to the Automobile Inspection & Registration Information Association, the number of passenger cars (including minivehicles) owned per Japanese household fell for the first time ever in fiscal 2006. By the end of March, the average household in Japan owned 1.107 cars.

We see that the sheer number of vehicles registered increased, but as the rate of increase in the number of households outstripped that figure, per household car ownership fell.

At the same time, the Japan Mini Vehicles Association announced that the number of minivehicles owned in Japan, including commercial vehicles, hit a record 47.9 per 100 households as of March 31, up from 46.8 a year earlier.

For any foreseeable future, pressure is mounting on Japanese automobile firms to perform better overseas (and lobby pray for a weak yen). Could consolidation be on the horizon for the industry?

Trivia Question: Tokyo has the lowest number of cars per household at 0.521, followed by Osaka, Kanagawa, Kyoto and Hyogo.

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Comments

5 Responses to “Japan’s Per Household Car Ownership Down in 2006”

  1. japan’s getting it right « don’t miss it on August 21st, 2007 10:24 pm

    […] from Japan Economy News […]

  2. links for 08-21-07 « A private Blog from Michael Jung. on August 22nd, 2007 10:55 am

    […] 2007/08/21/japans-getting-it-right/ - The picture of the car, dude, pink, girl?, outrages (4 out of 5) For the past 25 months, cars sales in Japan have been declining. In fact comparing July ‘06 with July ‘07 one can see at 10.4% decline in sales. Not only that, saturation of ‘mini-vehicles’ is nudging closer and closer to 50%, gaining about 1.1% from last year. But the biggest news is that for the first time ever the number of cars per household has decreased. (NEWS LINK) […]

  3. John S on August 22nd, 2007 3:24 pm

    What about numbers for commercial vehicles, trucks, taxi, municiple vehicles and the like?

  4. Car News » Japan’s Per Household Car Ownership Down in 2006 on September 18th, 2007 1:33 am

    […] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptWe see that the sheer number of vehicles registered increased, but as the rate of increase in the number of households outstripped that figure, per household car ownership fell. At the same time, the Japan Mini Vehicles Association … […]

  5. Todd Boyle on June 28th, 2009 6:00 am

    I understand that the number of cars per household is slightly more than one.

    Howvever, I need to understand– What percentage of households own a car?

    I must assume, it;s around half of the households? Since there are so many people living in the dense, urban areas Tokyo-Yokohama etc of whom, certainly a lot of them don’t own cars….

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