Honda receives 3,000 orders for Fit Aria in the first month in Japan
January 24, 2003
BY KAE INOUE
BLOOMBERG NEWS
TOKYO -- Honda Motor Co., Japan's second-biggest automaker, said orders for its Fit Aria small sedan exceeded its target for the first month of sales in Japan.
Honda received 3,000 orders of the Thai-built model in the period, which is 1,000 more than the target it set when it released the car on Dec. 20.
Japan's small sedan market is about 200,000 a year, and Honda wants to win about 10 percent of that market, it said without giving a time reference. The Fit Aria, based on Honda's Fit compact car, is equipped with either a 1.3-liter or 1.5-liter engine.
The Fit Aria is the first model the automaker is exporting from Thailand to Japan and is priced between 1.2 million yen ($10,150) and 1.59 million yen.
The model competes with Toyota Motor Corp.'s Corolla and Platz cars. Honda also plans to import other overseas-built models to Japan to make better use of its production capacity abroad, President Hiroyuki Yoshino said last month.