Aucnet Circular Economy Lab Publishes 'Used Car Market Price Index' for April 2026

The Aucnet Circular Economy Lab, a corporate lab established by Aucnet Inc. (HQ: Minato-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Shinichiro Fujisaki), has published its 'Used Car Market Price Index' report for April 2026.

In Japan, 'average transaction price' is often cited to understand market trends. However, this metric alone fails to reflect changes in the quality of used cars, making it insufficient for accurately grasping market price fluctuations.

To address this, Aucnet developed the 'Reuse Circulation Price Index' in collaboration with The University of Tokyo Economic Consulting Inc. (UTEcon). As its first iteration, they utilized Aucnet’s member circulation data, which exceeds 500,000 vehicles annually, and UTEcon's expertise in building price indices. By incorporating various vehicle attributes into a statistical model, they created a system that objectively measures price fluctuations, issuing monthly reports since December 2023.

The 'Used Car Market Price Index' for April 2026 is 2.478 (base: July 2008 = 1), a decrease of 0.092 (3.57%) from the previous month's 2.570. Conversely, the 'average transaction price' index stands at 1.558 this month (base: July 2008 = 1), an increase of 0.013 (0.81%) from the previous month's 1.545. The actual average transaction prices were 955,090 JPY in March 2026 and 962,849 JPY in April 2026.

The divergence between the index and the average transaction price suggests that while market prices are declining due to reduced demand, the share of higher-quality vehicles in circulation is increasing. By body type, the index saw a broad decline across all categories, led by a 6.32% drop in compact cars, including SUVs and minivans.