Mitsubishi Motors production down for first time in 3 years

Mitsubishi Motors has announced its figures for the financial year 2019-2020.Predictably, the numbers are down across the board because of the current crisis.

Yes, for the first time in three years Mitsubishi Motors Corporation has reported a decrease in production, Japan sales, and exports.

For FY 2019-20, Mitsubishi Motors produced 1,337,399 vehicles, which includes a mix of passenger cars and commercial vehicles. That's less by 103,828 units during the same period from last year when they sold 1,441,227 cars, crossovers, pick-ups, and SUVs. That puts them down by 7.2 percent in global production compared to last year.

The last six months haven't been too kind to the Japanese automaker, something made more difficult by the pandemic. Of the 1,337,399 Mitsubishi vehicles produced from April 2019 to March 2020, 620,676 were made in Japan while 716,723 built outside of their home country, the Philippines included. These figures put Japanese production down by 6.1 percent and overseas production lower by 8.2 percent.

Mitsubishi Motors also reports that vehicle production has been declining for the past six months. Overseas production has also been going down for the past five months. Even the home market (Japan) sales have been sliding since October 2019.

There are, however, some bright spots in this story. Mitsubishi Motors did report that Japanese production for March 2020 is up by 14.3 percent from March 2019's figures. They also reported a positive year on year change when it came to exports, which is up by 8.9 percent, so it's not all gloom for the company. Perhaps once the global crisis has subsided, the automaker might just be able to dust themselves off relatively unscathed from the massive effect of the pandemic.