(Nov 27): Toyota Motor Corp’s sales advanced in October as US demand helped make up for a downturn in China and Japan, showing resilience in the face of tariffs thanks to strong demand for the best-selling RAV4 compact crossover and other vehicles.
Global sales, including at its Daihatsu Motor Co and Hino Motors Ltd units, climbed 3% from a year earlier to one million units — an October record — the company said on Thursday. Sales of Toyota and Lexus vehicles climbed 12% in the US, though they fell 6.6% in China and 4.2% in Japan.
The figures show that Japan’s biggest company is increasingly counting on the North American market despite President Donald Trump’s tariffs on cars and car parts imported to the US. They also underscore how geopolitical friction with China may reshape its global sales, after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments this month about Taiwan prompted Beijing to take retaliatory economic and diplomatic measures.
Earlier this month, Toyota raised its annual operating profit guidance even as it anticipates a ¥1.4 trillion hit to its bottom line from Trump’s 15% tariffs. That was after a downgrade in August. The carmaker now projects ¥3.4 trillion in profit for fiscal year ending in March.
Battery electric vehicle sales jumped 74% from a year earlier to 18,322 units globally.
Toyota’s numbers continue to show that it’s pulling far ahead of its nearest rivals in Japan.
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Honda Motor Co’s sales shrank for the seventh straight month, posting a 5.6% drop in October to 292,319 units. Most of the decline was attributable to a steep 20% decline in China, where many car buyers are shunning Japanese brands in favour of locally made electric vehicles.
Production at Honda’s factories in North American also shrank due a halt in shipments of chips made by Nexperia, the chipmaker based in the Netherlands that’s owned by China’s Wingtech Technology Co. Output in North America dropped 14% to 134,454 vehicles in October, Honda said.
Earlier this year, the Dutch state invoked supervisory powers over Nexperia to safeguard crucial technology, citing concerns that actions by Wingtech risked hobbling the company. Nexperia is the last manufacturer with European production capacity for so-called “legacy” chips, which are crucial in the automotive and consumer electronics sectors.
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Nissan Motor Co saw sales fall 4.8% to 258,517 units in October, as a 14% decline in the US dragged the numbers down despite a 11% uptick in China.
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