(Bloomberg) -- Mitsubishi Motors Corp. (TYO:7211) shares have rallied 81% this year, outperforming all Asian peers, spurred by a demand revival for small cars and pickups in Southeast Asia.
While Japanese car exporters have benefitted from the yen plunging to a 24-year low, Mitsubishi Motors has also been helped by a product mix suited to emerging markets in Asia, where pent-up demand is being turned into purchases as economies reopen after the pandemic’s peak.
While half of this year’s 10 best-performers among Asian auto stocks are from Japan thanks to the weak yen, Mitsubishi Motors’ gains are more than double those of any compatriot. Shares of Mazda Motor Corp (TYO:7261) and Subaru Corp (TYO:7270) have climbed more than 20%, though Toyota Motor Corp (TYO:7203) has dropped.
The core markets for Mitsubishi Motors (OTC:MMTOF) include Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, making it “less vulnerable to the US economy’s slowdown than for peers Toyota, Honda, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. (TYO:7201) , Subaru and Mazda,” said Tatsuo Yoshida a senior analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
Mitsubishi Motors, which is in an alliance with Nissan (OTC:NSANY) Motor Co. and Renault SA (OTC:RNLSY), gets about a quarter of its revenue from the Asean region. Asean markets are seen by many as bright spots in the receding global economy, with tailwinds from commodities, tourism and a high proportion of banks that are well-positioned for rising interest rates worldwide.
Car buyers in the region are being lured by prices that reflect the yen’s tumble to the weakest in more than two decades, a byproduct of the Bank of Japan having taken a diverging monetary policy to its more hawkish peers in the US and elsewhere.
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