Japanese automakers see sales surge in September

Japanese automakers saw their sedan sales in the Chinese market surge by 65.8 percent year-on-year to 202,700 units in September, data showed Friday. But experts noted that it is still too early to say that Japanese auto brands have fully recovered from the "Diaoyu Islands" incident last year, which hit their China sales hard.

The growth was the strongest compared with both domestic and other foreign automakers in China.

On a monthly basis, Japanese carmakers saw sedan sales surge by 34.5 percent, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said Friday.

The surge was mainly due to the low base number in September last year, when the Japanese government's announcement to "nationalize" the Diaoyu Islands led to strong anti-Japan sentiment, Chen Shihua, an official at CAAM, said at a press briefing in Beijing Friday.

Japanese carmakers' share of the sedan market plummeted to 13.16 percent in September 2012 from a 20.04 percent share in August last year.

Dong Yang, secretary-general of the association, told the Global Times Friday that political disagreement between the two countries will still cast a shadow on Japanese carmakers' performance in China.

The CAAM data showed that Japanese automakers sold a total of 1.5 million sedans in China in the first three quarters of this year, with a 17.33 percent market share, compared with a level of over 20 percent before September 2012.