Strategic Group of Japanese Automobile Industry

This study accessed Japanese automobile industry through the strategic group theory. Strategic group means a group of firms that pursue a similar strategy within a specific industry. The domestic market share of Toyota was 30.3%, and Honda, Daihatsu, Nissan recorded 13.8%, 12.1%, 11.3% respectively in 2017. But the sum of other six makers, Mazda, Suzuki, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Isuzu & Hino was only 24.7%. Since early 2000s, Japanese automobile market has maintained the ‘One strong, Four middle and Five weak’ condition among those ten makers. So this study tried to review whether Japanese automobile market structure can be managed from the strategic group perspective or not. Through three categories of mobility barriers in creating the strategic group, this study looked into the relationship between the market share trend and the revenue & profit trend, the level of diversification of those ten makers. Also this study reviewed the product line-up, alternative fuel vehicle models and did a correlation analysis between such diversification variables and the revenue to profit ratios. In result it was hard to find any connection between the auto market structure of Japan and the strategic group.