USA - Nissan to import more Rogue Crossovers into the USA amid a sales boom for the model.

Renault-Nissan will export 38 percent more Nissan Rogue crossovers to the U.S. from South Korea in 2015 than planned earlier, to meet rising demand in North America.

The alliance will produce 110,000 Rogue crossovers at Renault’s South Korean factory for U.S. exports this year, from its previous plan of 80,000.

Nissan started producing the Rogue in South Korea and shipping it to the U.S. last year, a move that helped boost the factory utilization of Renault Samsung, the South Korean unit of the French carmaker.

Renault Samsung, squeezed by bigger rival Hyundai Motor Co. and German imports, saw its domestic sales nearly halve in 2012, although they have been recovering since then.

The Rogue, of which a new version was launched in 2013, is Nissan’s second best-selling model in the U.S. after its Altima midsize sedan, and posted a 13 percent rise in sales in January from a year earlier. Overall sales of compact crossovers rose 20 percent in the month.

Nissan also shifted the production of Rogue from Japan to the U.S. and started producing the model in Tennessee in 2013.

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Top 30 cars sold in Japan for 2014, ALL 30 are from home grown brands.

In 2014, the Toyota Aqua was again the top-selling car model in Japan. The Honda Fit took second place from the Prius with the evergreen Corolla fourth. The Japanese car market expanded by 3.5% to just over 5.5 million new vehicle registrations in 2014.

Best-Selling Car Models in Japan in 2014 (Full Year)

The 30 top-selling car models in Japan in 2014 according to new passenger vehicle registration statistics released by JADA were:

Rank 2013	Rank 2014	Model	Brand	2014 Sales	% Change
1	1	Aqua	Toyota	233,209	-11.1
3	2	Fit	Honda	202,838	11.8
2	3	Prius	Toyota	183,614	-27.6
5	4	Corolla	Toyota	114,331	12.5
16	5	Voxy	Toyota	109,174	160.4
4	6	Note	Nissan	106,765	-27.3
	7	Vezel	Honda	96,029	4,351.10
7	8	Vitz	Toyota	89,496	4.2
6	9	Serena	Nissan	76,909	-20.2
22	10	Noah	Toyota	69,605	115.5
	11	Harrier	Toyota	64,920	3,363.70
9	12	Freed	Honda	54,313	-20.6
25	13	X-TRAIL	Nissan	53,736	90.6
15	14	Passo	Toyota	49,770	16.3
8	15	Crown	Toyota	49,166	-40.5
14	16	Demio	Mazda	48,564	11.5
11	17	Impreza	Subaru	45,841	-21.3
10	18	Step WGN	Honda	42,743	-31.3
	19	Axela	Mazda	42,527	136.4
17	20	Swift	Suzuki	39,382	-3.8
13	21	Supeido	Toyota	38,733	-20.3
12	22	VELLFIRE	Toyota	36,734	-27.4
24	23	Solio	Suzuki	32,857	8.5
	24	Odyssey	Honda	32,749	120.9
	25	Levorg	Subaru	30,258	New
18	26	CX-5	Mazda	29,466	-23.5
23	27	Porte	Toyota	26,648	-15.8
19	20	Forrester	Subaru	25,921	-24.3
21	29	Alphard	Toyota	25,863	-23.4
20	30	Estima	Toyota	25,688	-26.4

The list does not include Kei minicars, which are hugely popular in Japan.

Top-Ten Best-Selling Car Models in Japan in 2014

Japanese car buyers are notoriously fickle with the launching of new models (and the aging of old ones) having a strong influence in the number of cars sold. Wide swings are often the norm when a new model is imminent.

However, at the top, the same three models have been the best-selling cars for several years now. In 2014, for the second consecutive year, the Toyota Aqua was Japan’s favorite car model. Sales of the Aqua (Prius C in some overseas markets) contracted by 11%. The first minor updates of the model, which has been on sale since early 2012, were made only at the end of 2014.

The Honda Fit (Jazz in some overseas markets) was the only model amongst the top three to have increased sales in Japan in 2014. The third generation of the Fit was launched in Japan in September 2013.

Sales of the Toyota Prius were down by more than a quarter in Japan in 2014. The current Prius was launched in 2009 – in 2010, it was the most-sold car ever in Japanese history when it sold 315,000 cars in a single calendar year.

The evergreen Toyota Corolla moved up from fifth to fourth while the Nissan Note lost a quarter of sales and slipped from fourth to sixth.

The most-improved car models were the Toyota Voxy and its sister model Noah. These eight-seater minivans have been enormously popular in Japan and the new models allowed the Voxy to improve from 16th to 5th and Noah from 22nd to 10th.

The Honda Vezel (HR-V in some international markets) is a small SUV crossover. Although very well received, the increase in sales reflects that the car was launched towards the end of 2013.

The Toyota Vitz (Yaris in overseas markets) slipped one place despite stronger sales while the Nissan Serena slipped three places with sales down by a fifth.

A few further salient features from the top-selling car models in Japan in 2014:

• The cars slipping out of the top-10 list of best-selling car models in Japan in 2014 were the Toyota Crown (from 8th), Honda Freed (9 th) and Honda Step WGN (10th).
• The Toyota Crown was the worst performer. The Crown is very popular with chauffeurs and taxi drivers in Japan and got a huge boost at the beginning of 2013 when a new model was launched.
• The Toyota Harrier is a large SUV similar to the Lexus RX – its 10th place is remarkably high for a large car not particularly needed on Japan’s carpet smooth roads.

The top-selling car brand in Japan in 2014 was again Toyota – partly confirmed by having 6 of the top 10 most-popular car models.

2014 saw serious growth on most markets to provide 2014 with one of the best years on record.

In December 2014, car sales increased in all major regions of the world with growth fastest in China, India and the USA. Europe also had a positive year with the market in the EU expanding for the first time in seven years. Although car sales were positive in Brazil and Russia in December 2014, full year numbers were down. In 2014, sales in India were flat while new passenger vehicle registrations in Japan increased by 3%. Growth in the USA and Europe was over 5% while China again led the way with a 13% increase in car sales in 2014.

Worldwide Car Sales in 2014 (January to December)

New light vehicle registrations in different major regions of the world as monitored by the VDA were as follows during the full 2014 calendar year:

Region	Dec 2014	% Change	Jan-Dec 2014	% Change	Jan-Dec 2013
Europe (EU+EFTA)	997,200	4.9	13,006,500	5.4	12,308,200
Russia*	270,700	2.4	2,491,400	-10.3	2,777,400
USA*	1,498,200	10.7	16,435,300	5.8	15,531,600
Japan	360,300	0.3	4,699,600	3	4,562,300
Brazil*	354,000	5.3	3,333,400	-6.9	3,579,900
India	209,000	12.4	2,570,500	0.7	2,554,000
China	1,969,100	19.2	18,368,900	12.7	16,303,700
Source: VDA			60,905,600		57,617,100
*USA, Brazil and Russia include light vehicles (trucks). % Change refers to same period the previous year.

Strong Car Sales in China in December 2014

China has been the largest car market most months during 2014 but sprung a final surprise with very strong growth in December. New passenger vehicle registrations in China increased by 19.2% in December 2014.

In 2014, new car sales in China increased by nearly two million cars to 18,368,900 cars – a 12.7% increase over 2013. German premium car brands mostly outperformed the overall market for another year of spectacular growth results.

Positive Car Sales in India and Japan in 2014

In Asia’s other two major car markets, the year ended positively after a changing year. In Japan, first quarter car sales were very strong in anticipation of a tax hike on April 1, 2014. Since then, the market has been mostly negative although often less so than was feared at the start of the year. Japan ended the year with a 3% overall increase in new passenger vehicle registrations but the outlook for 2015, especially in view of the very strong start to 2014, is negative.

India had a strong December with sales up 12%. However, car sales were negative many months in 2014 with the complete total up by less than a percentage point. However, India did overtake the Russian market by size in 2014.

Strong Car Sales in the USA in December 2014

The US light vehicle market had a difficult start to 2014 due to extreme winter weather but has been positive for most of the year. Sales in December 2014 were up 11% with lower fuel prices encouraging the market.

In December 2014, light vehicle sales (trucks and cars) increased by 11% to 1.5 million vehicles. Over the full year, sales increased by 6% to 16.4 million units – an increase of 60% since the crisis year in 2009.

In Brazil light truck sales increased by 5% in December 2014. The increase is largely seen as frontloading to avoid an increase in taxes in early 2015. For the year as a whole, car sales in Brazil were down 7%.

Car Sales Growth in Europe in 2014 (Full Year)

In 2014, the European Union and EFTA recorded the first annual sales growth since 2007. Car sales increased by 5.4% in 2014 to just over 13 million cars. Only six countries saw a decline in sales with the five biggest markets all recording positive growth, although in the case of France only just.

The UK alone contributed a third of the increase in sales in the EU during 2014 while Spain also saw a large increase in car sales. The British car market is poised to overtake the Russian market as the second biggest in the larger European region.

Sales of light vehicles in Russia increased slightly in December 2014 but this was probably due to rushed buying in anticipation of inflation and negative exchange rate effects in the near future. In 2014, the Russian car market shrunk by 10% and analysts expect a larger contraction in 2015.