Honda Fit Aria A Hit In Japan

TOKYO January 24, 2003; Kae Inoue writing for Bloomberg reports that 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.