The April leaderboard of World’s Largest Automakers went red and mysterious. Global OEMs are contending with a hyper-competitive Chinese market, where sales by homegrown brands rose 25% in April, while registrations of foreign brands cratered (Japanese -9.8%, German -0.1%, American -14%, Korean -16.5% , in April.)
Driven by various plant closures on top of the above, Toyota Group’s YTD global deliveries dropped by 5.1% YOY.
Across the water in South Korea, formerly spunky Hyundai Group reported slightly less than flat sales, also due to the Chinese situation.
Volkswagen Group is heavily dependent on the Chinese market, and it avoided a loss of face by not publishing any April delivery data. It won’t publish any May delivery data either, as it went on a quarterly reporting schedule, the company’s IR department said. Not a good sign.
