U. S. auto sales for June exposed the second-rate performances of a few Japanese car manufacturers, whose shares remained behind the wider market in Friday's trading.

According to statistics from Autodata, Japanese car firms' U. S. sales increased, but could not afford to gain for their counterparts, with Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. recording single-digit rise year-over-year.

Toyota's passenger car sales plunged. Total U. S. auto sales fell by almost 4.7% in sequence to a seasonally adjusted yearly rate of 11.08 million in June, which is the lowest rate, ever since the month of February.

Toyota's total U. S. June sales jumped by 6.8% to 140,604 vehicles, but passenger cars were its most lazy players, with Lexus sales down by 6.6%.

Honda's increased by 6.2% to a total of 106,627 vehicles. Car sales went up by 7.8%, with Honda-brand sales for June up by 4%, and Acura brand sales taking a leap of 30.9%.

Nissan Motors fared the best of the Japanese corporations, helped by a lower base, with a 10.8% sales boost to 64,570 vehicles.

Toyota's poor market-share performance suggested that the firm is right to have assumed weak pricing all through the year, said Kurt Sanger, a market analyst at Deutsche Securities in Tokyo, in a note to clients Friday.