Toyota Motor Corp and Honda Motors have said that their global production hit records last year thanks to robust sales in North America while Nissan Motor and Mitsubishi Motors slipped.
Japan's top automaker Toyota announced a 9.5 percent increase in global production to 9.018 million vehicles, the 15th straight annual increase, although it fell below December forecasts of 9.05 million.
Honda increased production by 30 percent in China and 9.8 percent in Japan. Production growth in the US was milder at 1.6 percent while in Europe production dropped 3.9 percent, the company said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Japan's number two automaker Nissan Motor said its global production dropped 7.7 percent to 3.238 million units in 2006 as its market share eroded at home and it launched few new models overseas.
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