The Indian market surpassed the Japanese market in 2024
- The volume of the Indian car market surpassed that of the Japanese car market in 2024, and the gap between the two markets widened in 2025.
- In 2024, 4,274,789 passenger cars were sold in India, compared to 3,725,200 units in Japan. In the first nine months of 2025, 3,128,000 passenger cars were sold in India, while Japan purchased 2,465,000 units. This means that the gap between the two markets, which was approximately 550,000 units in 2024, widened to 663,000 units in the first nine months of 2025, and this gap is expected to widen further by the end of the year. The graph below, which shows the monthly sales curve for passenger cars in India and Japan, clearly demonstrates that sales in India eventually surpassed those in Japan starting from 2024.
- It is clear that the sales potential is greater in India than in Japan, firstly because of India's significantly larger population (the ratio is approximately 12 to 1), and secondly because the Japanese market is saturated, leading to stagnation for several decades, while the Indian market is still developing due to a very low motorization rate. A common feature of these two markets is the high proportion of small A-segment cars (Kei cars in Japan): 0.5 million in India in 2024 (12% of the market) and 1.2 million in Japan (32% of the market). In Europe, the A-segment represented 5% of the market in 2024 and 4% in 2025.