2010 Toyota Prius Top-Selling Car in Japan in 2009

08 January, 2010 08:21:00

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The Toyota Prius was the top-selling car in Japan last year, becoming the first hybrid to top the annual rankings.

The Japan Automobile Dealers Association said that Toyota.'s Prius was No. 1 in its ranking of sales by vehicle models - with 208,876 Prius cars sold in 2009, nearly three times the numbers sold the previous year or a 285.7 percent increase.

The Honda Fit sold the second-most units, shifting 157, 324 models over the course of the year, followed by the Toyota Vitz.

The Honda Insight hybrid ranked fifth with sales of 93,283 vehicles, the association reported.

The new Prius was Japan’s top-selling model for every month from May last year, when world’s biggest carmaker released a new model.

Toyota, along with Honda, dominated car sales in Japan last year, producing eight of the top ten best-selling models of 2009.

The only other maker to have a car in the top 10 best-sellers was Nissan, which saw its Serena and Note models come in eighth place and 10th place respectively.

Hybrid sales already make up about 10 percent of new vehicle sales in Japan.

Government stimulus introduced last year saves buyers as much as 394,500 yen ($4,229) on the cheapest Prius, priced at 2.05 million yen.

[source: Bloomberg]

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