While Subaru is on a roll in North America, another Japanese small-car specialist, American Suzuki Motor, continues to bleed red ink as it struggles to gain sales with its midsize Kizashi sports sedan
and other vehicles, Chester Dawson and Yoshio Takahashi report.
Suzuki has had trouble selling the compact and subcompact cars it is known for globally in North America with a drop of
36% to 16,000 vehicles in the first six months of the year. "Our lineup is focused on small cars, but we have just a few small cars that fit the U.S. market," admits chairman and CEO Osamu Suzuki.
Suzuki's models don't stand out in a crowded market and it has a sparse dealer network -- 350 today from a peak of 500 just a few years ago. "Fundamentally, they are just too small to
exist in this marketplace, and they have failed to differentiate themselves sufficiently and they have just been forgotten about," says IHS Automotive analyst John Wolkonowicz.
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