North America as the largest market
North America was the largest market for Honda’s automobile segment in 2021. At approximately 4.68 trillion Japanese yen of sales revenue in the region (around 42.8 million U.S. dollars), this market dwarfed all others including Asia, where the Honda Group recorded the highest volume of automobile sales a year earlier.In the first half of 2021, Honda held over 8.7 percent of the U.S. car market with the CR-V and Honda Civic being amongst the best-selling SUV and car models. Over 324,700 Honda vehicles were sold on the U.S. market in the fourth quarter of 2020, with the Honda Motor Company’s Acura brand amounting to some 41,300 sales for the same period. Honda ranked first for customer satisfaction a year later, with an index score four points over the national average. What makes an automobile brand valuable from a consumer’s point of view include the quality, fuel economy, handling of varying degrees of terrain, and many other qualities of a car brand. By contrast, Acura ranked two points below the average. At 63 percent, Honda was perceived by car owners as one of the most reliable brands of 2020.
The impact of COVID-19 on competitors
Ford and Toyota were the leading car brands in the U.S. in 2020, with over 1.9 and 1.8 million cars sold in the country respectively. As the second most valuable brand in the global automotive sector, Japan-based Toyota was one of Honda’s direct competitors. The manufacturer’s luxury brand Lexus ranked just below Honda in terms of U.S. customer overall satisfaction in 2021.Both Toyota and the Ford Motor Company were also impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, Ford recorded a 22 percent slump in revenues and a 60,100 units drop in vehicle sales in the United States between the fourth quarter of 2019 and 2020. Toyota’s net revenue also dipped by just under nine percent in 2021, but its vehicle sales in the United States increased across both its Toyota and Lexus brands. Toyota was the leading Asian car brand in the United States as of the fourth quarter of 2020, with Honda coming in second in the ranking.
