It has been a rough start to the year for Nissan Motor and Honda Motor, with both automakers announcing that they will scale down production volume in Japan this February due to supply chain issues at home and abroad.
On Thursday, February 3, Honda revealed that output at its domestic assembly plants would shrink by about 10 percent from planned levels. That is a huge blow for Honda as that figure would equate to around 60,000 vehicles for the month.
Honda blamed the downgrade of production on the stalled supplies of semiconductor components from the Southeast Asian region after a heavy flood hit Malaysia back in December. Honda is the first Japanese carmaker to list heavy flooding in Malaysia as the cause for the drop in production, and other automakers may follow suit as well with that line of reasoning.
With supply chain issues affecting Honda again, the Japanese firm will cut production at two of its domestic plants. Honda previously slashed domestic output by 10 percent from the scheduled volume in November 2021.
Production levels were then downgraded by roughly 5 percent in December 2021 and January 2022. That was a major disappointment for Honda as it forecasted back in November that global output would return to initially planned volumes at the start of the year.
Nissan was also hit badly by supply chain issues, with the Japanese carmaker telling suppliers that it would cut global production for February by 10,000 vehicles. That represents a 4 percent drop from its original production plan, dealing a massive blow to Nissan's finances.
Nissan wanted to restore car production to initially projected levels in January 2022, but the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on those plans yet again. Coronavirus outbreaks brought upon by the highly infectious Omicron variant affected their suppliers, forcing the Japanese company to reduce production by 4 percent to start the year.
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On Saturday, supply chain issues led Nissan to cancel operations at two of its group plants in the Kanagawa Prefecture. It was not all doom and gloom for Nissan, as sales of its cars in India rose last month. Nissan sold 4,250 vehicles in the first month of 2022, representing a 5.7 percent increase compared to the same period last year.
Nissan India exported 1,224 Nissan and Datsun vehicles, representing a 36 percent cumulative YTD growth in exports. According to Managing Director Rakesh Srivastava, Nissan India registered an impressive cumulative growth of 203 percent year to date thanks to the strong demand for the Nissan Magnite. The Indian-made SUV was a hit locally and globally, with the vehicle being exported to more than 15 countries.
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