Japan May 2015: Honda Shuttle and Mazda Roadster land

Honda Shuttle

* See the Top 60 All-brands, Top 30 regular cars, Top 35 kei cars by clicking on the title *

Japan report prepared in collaboration with Stephen Bloom.

Sales of new vehicles in Japan are down 8% year-on-year in May to 335.644 registrations, bringing the year-to-date total to 2.234.004 units, down 12.5% on 2014. The overall market is single-handedly pulled into negative territory by the kei car segment hit by new taxes implemented on April 1: kei cars are down 20% to 125.755 deliveries whereas regular cars are up 1% to 209.889 units including 20.104 foreign models, up a stunning 12%. Toyota bucks the trend by dropping only 1% thanks to the Aqua (+19%), facelifted Corolla (+9%) and Prius (-10%) monopolising the regular models podium, Suzuki (-13%), Honda (-14%) and Nissan (-10%) follow while Daihatsu tumbles down 28%. There are 3 manufacturers actually gaining volume year-on-year in the Top 10: Mazda up a spectacular 40% thanks to a slew of new models (see below), Subaru up 3% and Mercedes up 40% also. Further down, notice also Audi (+16%), Peugeot (+21%), Lexus (+24%), BMW (+28%), Mini (+30%) and Porsche (+45%) all delivering impressive gains.

The Japanese Toyota Corolla was recently facelifted.

In the regular models ranking, the podium 100% Toyota kicks the Honda Fit down to #4 while the Toyota Esquire continues on its fantastic run in 5th place with 7.109 sales, the new Honda StepWGN is up 71% to #8 and the Honda Vezel which received a slight refresh in April is back up 6 spots to #9 but down 39% year-on-year. The Toyota Vellfire is up 85% to #12, Nissan X-Trail up 50% to #13 thanks to a new hybrid variant, Toyota Alphard up 127% to #16 and Subaru Levorg up 157% to #29. There are two newcomers in the Top 30 this month: the Honda Shuttle, previously branded as Fit Shuttle, launched on May 15 and lands at #19 with 2.938 units also launched the new Shuttle May 15 which debuts at #19 with 2,938 units and the new generation Mazda Roadster (aka MX-5 Miata) went on sale in its home market on May 21 and already triples its total sales from 2014, coming in at #24 with 2.157 deliveries.

The Mazda Roadster ranks #24 at home this month.

Over on the kei car chart, the Honda N-BOX is again in #1 with 10,398 units, the Nissan Dayz is up 4 spots to #2, the Daihatsu Tanto up one to #3, the Suzuki Spacia climbs 5 ranks to #4 thanks to a May refresh, the Suzuki Alto is up two to #5 and the Suzuki Wagon R is down one to #6 while the new generation Suzuki Every Wagon is up 96% to #13.

Previous month: Japan April 2015: Toyota Esquire and Honda StepWGN shine

One year ago: Japan May 2014: Honda Vezel and Toyota Harrier outstanding again

One year ago (Kei): Japan Kei cars May 2014: Daihatsu Tanto & Suzuki Wagon R overall best-sellers

Full May 2015 Top 60 All-brands, Top 30 regular and Top 35 kei cars below.