In 2013, the Toyota Aqua replaced the Prius as the top-selling car model in Japan. The Honda Fit was again the third most popular car.
Japan’s favorite car in 2013 was the Toyota Aqua. The Toyota Prius, the market leader since 2009, was the second most popular car in Japan in 2013. The Honda Fit was the third best-selling car model in Japan followed by the Nissan Note and the evergreen Toyota Corolla.
The Japanese car market in 2013 was flat with 5,375.513 (+0.1%) new vehicle registrations.
Best-Selling Car Models in Japan in 2013 (Full Year)
The 30 most popular car models in Japan in 2013 according to car sales statistics released by JADA were:
| Rank 2012 | Rank 2013 | Manufacturer | Model | Sales | % Change |
| 2 | 1 | Toyota | Aqua | 262’367 | -1.6 |
| 1 | 2 | Toyota | Prius | 253’711 | -20.1 |
| 3 | 3 | Honda | Fit | 181’414 | -13.3 |
| 7 | 4 | Nissan | Note | 147’634 | 73 |
| 8 | 5 | Toyota | Corolla | 101’664 | 26.4 |
| 6 | 6 | Nissan | Serena | 96’407 | 0.4 |
| 5 | 7 | Toyota | Vitz | 85’903 | -18.7 |
| 26 | 8 | Toyota | Crown | 82’701 | 176 |
| 4 | 9 | Honda | Freed | 76’818 | -35.7 |
| 9 | 10 | Honda | Step WGN | 62’206 | -2.4 |
| 13 | 11 | Subaru | Impreza | 58’243 | 12 |
| 10 | 12 | Toyota | VELLFIRE | 50’575 | -13.6 |
| 13 | Toyota | Supeido | 48’584 | 83.1 | |
| 11 | 14 | Mazda | Demio | 43’573 | -24.6 |
| 12 | 15 | Toyota | Passo | 42’805 | -18.1 |
| 14 | 16 | Toyota | Voxy | 41’918 | -17.1 |
| 15 | 17 | Suzuki | Swift | 40’926 | -5.1 |
| 24 | 18 | Mazda | CX-5 | 38’520 | 8.7 |
| 19 | Subaru | Forrester | 35’166 | 182 | |
| 20 | 20 | Toyota | Estima | 34’882 | -11.3 |
| 17 | 21 | Toyota | Alphard | 33’764 | -18.6 |
| 22 | 22 | Toyota | Noah | 32’306 | -12.1 |
| 23 | Toyota | Porte | 31’649 | 22.9 | |
| 21 | 24 | Suzuki | Solio | 30’296 | -22.1 |
| 28 | 25 | Nissan | X-TRAIL | 28’198 | -0.4 |
| 19 | 26 | Nissan | March | 27’711 | -30.2 |
| 23 | 27 | Toyota | Wish | 26’021 | -28.7 |
| 16 | 28 | Toyota | Lactis | 25’688 | -40.3 |
| 29 | Mazda | Atenza | 22’388 | 328.7 | |
| 27 | 30 | Toyota | SIENTA | 22’371 | -25.2 |
| Source:JADA |
Top-30 Best-Selling Car Models in Japan in 2013 (Full Year)
Japanese buyers are famously fickle with new and updated vehicles demanded frequently for a car to remain popular. Large swings in demand are thus common as a model ages or when a new version enters the market. Although there were very few new car models on the top 30 list in 2013, sales and rank positions vary widely from a year ago.
At the top, the big change was that the smaller Toyota Aqua has narrowly outsold its larger, and similarly hybrid, sibling the Toyota Prius. The Prius has been Japan’s favorite car since 2009. However, both cars had weaker sales in 2013 with Prius sales down by a fifth.
The Honda Fit (Jazz in some overseas markets) was again the third most popular car model in Japan in 2013. However, the new Fit model was launched in September and during the final quarter of 2013 comfortably outsold both the similarly sized Toyota Aqua and the larger Prius. The Prius outsold the Aqua as well in Q4/2013. The Honda Fit last was the most popular car in Japan in 2008.
The new Nissan Note was popular with the Japanese car buyers in 2013 with strong sales increases seeing the car moving up two places from a year ago. The evergreen, if conservative, Toyota Corolla similarly improved two places while the Nissan Serena maintained its sixth position from a year ago.
The small Toyota Vitz (Yaris in most overseas markets) slipped two places but the large Toyota Crown increased sales by 176% and shot up from 26 th place a year ago. The Crown is a large sedan popular with taxis as well as for company cars with drivers.
The Honda Freed was the worst performer of the top models with sales down by more than a third and moving down from fourth a year ago to the ninth most popular car in Japan in 2013. The minibus Honda Stepwagon slipped one place to round out the top ten list.
Toyota was again the top manufacturer in Japan in 2013.
