Auto Stats: Automotive (NEUTRAL) - Just can’t catch a break!

Auto Stats: Automotive (NEUTRAL) - Just can’t catch a break!

• Yet another potential negative impact on the industry. News articles have reported that a magnitude 7.3 earthquake has struck Japan off the coast of Fukushima, the home to the nuclear power plant badly damaged in a Mar 2011 Great East Japan earthquake, triggering a tsunami alert (http://bloom.bg/2fj1XmR). Fukushima is also a home to several car (Toyota, Nissan, Honda) and auto parts manufacturers which saw their supply chain disrupted following the earthquake and tsunami Mar 2011.
• Aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. The following is a study done in 2014 to assess the damage of the earthquake and the supply chain disruption it has caused:

• Maintain Neutral for now. Should there be another major disruption to the supply chain, there may be risk to our TIV forecast and sales forecast for affected marques.  Pending further development, we keep our 2017 TIV forecast of 610k units (+6% YoY) unchanged.