oyota Motor Corp., Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. each reported strong sales gains in January, driven in part by the timing of the Lunar New Year holiday.

 

Last month, Nissan sales rose 9.4 percent from a year earlier to 127,300 vehicles, Toyota deliveries jumped 32 percent to 125,000, and Honda's increased nearly 21 percent to 107,357.

 

This year, the Lunar New Year holiday starts in early February, which triggered strong car buying in January. Industry analysts usually wait for February results before drawing conclusions about market trends.

 

Toyota and Nissan announced modest sales goals for this year. Toyota aims to raise deliveries 2.7 percent to 1.15 million vehicles, while Nissan expects to boost sales 4 percent to 1.3 million.

 

To stoke Toyota's sales growth, the company plans to expand one of its assembly plants in Tianjin to produce 220,000 vehicles, up from 120,000 now. That factory produces the Corolla compact sedan.

 

Meanwhile, Honda plans to introduce a new budget crossover this year to exploit that segment's fast growth. Over the next three years, Honda plans to introduce 15 new or redesigned models, including 8 tweaked for China.