We said that once the Honda numbers for April came in we would get them to you. The other Japanese automobile manufacturer’s sales numbers for April 2008 can be found in an earlier post that I have written. The way the sales numbers have worked this April 2008 is a little weird. Last year in 2007 there were 24 selling days and this year in April 2008 there 26. So it looks like Honda has sold more cars in the month of April this year however if you take the sales on a daily basis Honda actually had a decline in sales of 1.3 percent. Honda of America which includes the Acura brand sold 135,180 vehicles April 2008 versus 126,419 for April 2007. The biggest seller for Honda was the Honda Accord selling 34,628 units. In the Acura division, Honda of America sold 4,291 Acura TL models. A Honda representative had this to say about the April 2008 sales results

“Selling conditions are certainly tough, but at Honda we see this as an opportunity,” said Dick Colliver, executive vice president of American Honda. “In difficult times, consumers make very rational, thoughtful purchase decisions, which play into Honda’s core brand strengths of fuel economy, safety and quality.”

With the economy tightening consumers are going to be flocking to the Japanese cars because they had the forethought to innovate toward “greener” fuel economy standards. So I would guess that although the economy is on the downward swing people will be more inclined to buy Japanese brands versus the domestic brands that are playing catch up with the whole “green” movement.

2008 Honda Accord EX-L V-6 with 6-speed manual transmission (6MT)

Source: [Honda]