Amid the Chinese public‘s angry protests over Japan‘s purchase of the Diaoyu Islands, Japanese car sales have nose-dived in China for three consecutive months, a trend that some analysts believe will last for an extended period of time, the Economic Information Daily reported.

According to statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, China‘s passenger car sales went up by 11.3 percent in August from the same period of last year, but Japanese cars, with 226,900 units sold, were the only group to suffer from a decline in sales, dropping by two percent.

In September, Japanese automakers were hit by a further decline in sales. Several major Japanese brands experienced a drop in sales by 50 percent on average from last year in China. Subaru and Mitsubishi were hit hardest, with sales plummeting by 62.5 percent and 62.9 percent respectively. Toyota‘s and Suzuki‘s sales plunged by nearly 50 percent. Honda, Nissan and Mazda were plagued by thirty to forty percent sales fall.

In October, the situation did not show any signs of a turnaround. Yan Jinghui, deputy general manager of the Asian Games Village Car Market in Beijing said, "Japanese car sales fell significantly in October, down about 10 percent from those in September." Statistics from the auto dealer showed that the market share of Japanese cars fell to 12.6 percent by the end of September from 26.39 percent a month before.

Consequently, the sales decline led to worrying stockpile levels. China Automobile Dealers Association‘s statistics showed that among seven auto brands with stockpiles exceeding 2.5 times the sale volumes, five were Japanese brands including Acura, Lexus, Nissan, Suzuki and Toyota.

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