The total consolidated domestic passenger car sales volume for the 1st half of the fiscal year ending March 2008 dropped 4.5 thousand units on a year-on-year basis. Sales of passenger cars declined with the exception of the Impreza. The effect of the Legacy’s big change in June of last year, which drove sales of SI-Drive equipped turbo and 6-cylinder models up, has subsided and sales of the Legacy were down by 8 thousand units on a year-on-year basis. Sales of the Forester dropped 1.1 thousand units while sales of the Impreza jumped 5.4 thousand units. Minicar sales were down for all models with a decrease of 8.2 thousand units overall as the impact of the Stella’s new model release continued to wane. Overall domestic sales dipped 12.7 thousand units on a year-on-year basis.

In overseas markets, sales were up 0.6 thousand units in the U.S. market with an increase of 2.6 thousand units for the Legacy. This increase offset the 1.4 thousand unit decrease for the Impreza and a decrease of 1.3 thousand units for the Forester. European sales saw an overall increase of 6 thousand units with the sales of the Impreza and the Tribeca increasing by 5.2 thousand and 2 thousand units respectively. This includes a remarkable sales increase of 4 thousand units in Russia. In other markets sales were up for all models including an increase of 4.2 thousand units for the Impreza, resulting in an overall increase of 8.6 thousand units. All this added up to an overall increase of 15.4 thousand units in overseas markets. However when you factor in the drop in domestic sales, total sales were up only by 2.7 thousand units.