TOKYO (Bloomberg) -- Honda Motor Co., Japan’s second- largest carmaker, will cut the number of models sold only domestically to trim development costs.

The company plans to eliminate some of the 10 models exclusive to Japan over the next five or six years, Hiroshi Kobayashi, Honda’s Japan sales head, said in an interview in Tokyo on Monday, without specifying the models.
Tokyo-based Honda sells 28 models in Japan, compared with 18 in the U.S. and nine in China, the two biggest car markets. Industry-wide sales in Japan peaked in fiscal year 1990 at 7.8 million units and dropped to 4.7 million vehicles last fiscal year.
“Given that Japan is not a growing market, it’s not attractive for introducing new models,” said Masatoshi Nishimoto, an analyst in Tokyo at auto consulting company CSM Worldwide.
Development costs per model run from under 10 billion yen ($104 million) to adapt an existing platform to over 50 billion yen for a luxury model, according to Koji Endo, an auto analyst in Tokyo at Credit Suisse Group AG.