TOKYO/SEOUL, July 2, (Agencies): New vehicle sales in Japan slumped by more than a fifth in June as the production disruption from the March earthquake lingered, but the data showed a big improvement from the previous months as more parts became available.
In neighbouring South Korea, Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors extended their strong run with double-digit growth, as Hyundai ate further into the market share of Japanese carmakers.
Japanese vehicle sales, excluding 660cc microcars, fell 23 percent to 225,024 last month, marking the 10th straight month of declines. But officials put on a rare optimistic face on the result, saying sales were well off the post-disaster trough.

“The trend of recovery is very clear,” Michiro Saito, general manager at the Japan Automobile Dealers Association, told reporters. “We remain somewhat uncertain of future demand, but we hope that new model launches will help fuel it,” he said.
Japanese auto sales fell by a third in May, the lowest total for the month since 1968.
In June, an average 10,228 cars were registered per day, up from 7,482 in May and 5,441 in April, when cars were assembled at a significantly reduced pace with hundreds of parts still missing.
Toyota Motor , Nissan Motor and Honda Motor , Japan’s top three automakers, have all said they are close to being able to build as many cars as they had planned before the quake, with only a few critical components still affected.
Including minivehicles, which are tallied separately, new vehicle sales in Japan, the world’s third-biggest car market, slid 22 percent to 351,828 in June.

Uptick
Results varied across the brands, with Nissan showing a 4.2 percent rise from a year ago — the first uptick in nine months — while Toyota and Honda suffered declines of more than 30 percent.
Nissan has restored production faster than its rivals, managing to build more vehicles in May while output at Toyota and Honda more than halved.
Hyundai and Kia extended their industry-beating march after sales accelerated in the past few months as quake-hit Japanese rivals suffered from a dearth of products.
The duo, which ranks fifth in global car sales, are expected to report healthy sales and earnings in the second half, but would need to manage investors’ expectations in the face of a weakening global economy, analysts said.
“The slowing global economy may deal a blow to consumer sentiment. But there is pent-up demand for cars in the United States after the market collapsed in the wake of the global financial crisis,” said Yoon Phil-joong, an analyst at Samsung Securities.
“Consumers also place value on practicality during difficult economic times. Korean car makers are relatively safe,” he said.
Hyundai’s global sales rose 12.3 percent to a monthly record in June, helped by strong sales in the United States, China, India and South Korea. Kia’s sales surged 22 percent.

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YOKOSUKA: Nissan’s plant is busily rolling out the Leaf electric car and other models on a Saturday, having shifted production schedules for an aggressive nationwide effort to fight the power crunch created by a tsunami-crippled nuclear plant.
“Setsuden,” or “save electricity,” is now Japan’s biggest buzzword. The March 11 disaster sent several reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant into meltdowns, prompting the government to demand that major companies, shopping malls and universities reduce electricity consumption by 15 percent.
Starting Saturday, Nissan Motor Co and other Japanese automakers are working weekends and instead taking Thursday and Friday off.

The reworked schedule is for July, August and parts of September, to spread out electricity consumption at plants and offices during peak power-need periods.
“This is an emergency,” Nissan Senior Manager in charge of environment and energy control Yuji Kishi said during a tour of the Oppama auto plant for reporters.
The setsuden program applies to office workers as well, who are starting their days early at 8 a.m.
Those needing to do overtime are restricted to certain floors, so the rest of the headquarters building in Yokohama can go dark, all in the name of setsuden.
Kishi said Nissan is already simulating electricity use for next year, assuming all nuclear plants are shutdown, to be prepared to slash electricity use by an even bigger 25 percent compared to last year.
“It will be a tough challenge,” he said. “But it is not impossible for us.”