Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. unveiled its first minivan in Japan Tuesday as it aims to reverse a domestic sales slide.
The Exiga will be priced from ¥2 million to ¥2.78 million, the Tokyo-based automaker said. The carmaker aims to sell 2,300 Exigas a month.
Fuji Heavy, which had an 8 percent drop in domestic car sales in the year ended March 31, joins other Japanese automakers trying to tap the country's shrinking auto market with new minivans.
Honda Motor Co. released the Freed minivan last month and Mazda Motor Corp. will debut the Biante next month.
"Fuji Heavy's Exiga comes a bit too late, following others like Honda," said Akihiko Imagawa, a Tokyo-based analyst at auto consulting company CSM Worldwide. "It's difficult to take away market share. Minivans have been popular for more than a decade and Fuji Heavy needed to have a vehicle in the segment."
Japan's vehicle sales industrywide, excluding minicars, fell 4.5 percent to 3.43 million units last fiscal year from a year earlier, according to the Japan Automobile Dealers Association.
Minivans have held about 25 percent of the car market for the past decade, Imagawa said.
"The Japanese market will continue to be difficult," Fuji Heavy President Ikuo Mori said at a news conference.
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