K型极化如何重塑日本汽车市场

Best of Times, Worst of Times: How K-shaped polarization isreshaping Japan's auto market “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. The famous opening line of CharlesDickens’ ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ captures a period of contradiction: the French aristocracyindulging in opulence and privilege, the peasantry experiencing poverty and oppression.While 2026 is thankfully not 18th century France, shifting class dynamics remain moretopical than ever, from the US K-shaped economy to the squeezed Chinese middle class.In this note, we examine how K-shaped polarization is reshaping Japan’s auto market,weakening affordability, and changing automakers’ competitive positioning. Masahiro Akita+81 3 6777 6998masahiro.akita@bernsteinsg.com Seunghyeok Kim+81 3 6777 6974seunghyeok.kim@bernsteinsg.com Tomohiro Kashimoto+81 3 6777 6975tomohiro.kashimoto@bernsteinsg.com K-shaped polarization is reshaping Japan’s auto market:Demand in Japan’s automarket is becoming polarized between low-end and high-end vehicles. Between 2015and 2025, monthly new car purchase spending per household declined as much as 22%among lower-income households, while increasing as much as 32% among higher-incomehouseholds. Car ownership also became more polarized, with the ownership rate gapbetween lower-income and higher-income households widening from 27%p to 30%p.Polarization is also visible in currently owned vehicle prices. The share of low-end vehiclespriced below JPY 1 mn increased from 1% in 2017 to 6% in 2025, while the share of high-end vehicles priced above JPY 5 mn rose from 6% to 15%. In contrast, the share of vehiclespriced at JPY 1-2 mn, the largest volume segment, declined from 46% to 19%. Affordability pressure is weakening car ownership among lower-income households:Rising financial burdens from car ownership are affecting demand. Japan’sreal monthly disposable income declined 5% from its 2020 peak of JPY 499 thousandto JPY 476 thousand in 2025, reflecting inflation. The impact of weaker real purchasingpower was more pronounced among lower-income households. In 2025, the proportionof households describing car ownership costs as a financial burden reached 44% amonglower-income households, compared with 29% among higher-income households. Automakers with exposure to both low-end and high-end demand are better positioned:K-shaped polarization in Japan’s auto market could increasingly affectautomakers’ sales mix and profitability. In 2025, the combined domestic sales mix of thelowest-priced segment below JPY 2 mn and the highest-priced segment above JPY 5 mnwas highest for Suzuki at 74% and Toyota at 43%, followed by Honda at 38%, Mazda at37%, Nissan at 29%, and Subaru at 10%. Meanwhile, operating margins in Japan werealso highest for Toyota at 11% and Suzuki at 9%, followed by Nissan at 0%, Mazda at -5%,Subaru at -11%, and Honda at -14%. This suggests that automakers with exposure to bothlow-end and high-end segments tend to maintain higher profitability under a K-shapeddemand environment, withToyotaandSuzukiappearing relatively well positioned. Shared mobility benefits as car ownership becomes less affordable:Japan’s sharedmobility market, including car sharing and ride sharing, is expanding alongside K-shapedpolarization. As the economic rationality of car ownership declines, some ownershipdemand could shift toward shared mobility. As the market expands, automakers mayincreasingly need to focus not only on manufacturing and sales, but also on recurringrevenue generation across the vehicle lifecycle and downstream service capabilities. BERNSTEIN TICKER TABLE INVESTMENT IMPLICATIONS We rate Toyota Outperform with an updated price target of JPY 4,200.00.We rate Suzuki Outperform with a price target of JPY 2,550.00.We rate Honda Market-Perform with a price target of JPY 1,300.00.We rate Nissan Underperform with a price target of JPY 350.00.We rate Subaru Underperform with an price target of JPY 2,350.00.We rate Mazda Underperform with a price target of JPY 1,000.00. DETAILS K-SHAPED POLARIZATION IS RESHAPING JAPAN'S AUTO MARKET Higher-income households are spending more while lower-income households are spending less From 2015 to 2025, monthly new car purchase spending per household in Japan increased only marginally from JPY 10.3thousand to JPY 10.5 thousand, up 2%, suggesting limited change at the aggregate level. However, a clear divergence emergedbetween lower-income and higher-income households when viewed by income bracket (Exhibit 1). In this part, households withannual income below JPY 4 mn are classified as lower-income households, while households with annual income above JPY12.5 mn are classified as higher-income households, based on the income categories defined by Japan’s Ministry of InternalAffairs and Communications. Among lower-income households with annual income below JPY 4 mn, monthly new car purchase spending declined across allincome brackets. More specifically, spending among households earnin