Japanese automotive manufacturers have seen an increase in sales this April, but not without increasing their spending on incentive programs.

Toyota Motor Corp., Nissan Motor Corp., and Honda Motor Corp., all raised incentives last month to put pressure on domestic manufacturers General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., and DaimlerChrysler AG.

Toyota spent $1,048 per vehicle on incentives in the U.S. market, up 18.8% from last year, according to Autodata Corp. Auto analyst Jesse Toprak of Edmunds.com told the Detroit Free Press that this is a record amount of spending on incentives for Toyota. But the incentives helped boost sales by more than 21.3% over last April, another record for the company.

Nissan spent the most on incentives of any Japanese manufacturer, averaging $1,878 per vehicle. That number is up 19.8% from a year ago, but Nissan's sales rose 27% over last year's. Honda, which typically spends the least on incentives of the Japanese automakers, averaged $1,125 on incentives per vehicle, up 6.6% from 2004. Honda's sales rose by 13.5%.

Japanese brands have continually avoided spending as much on buyer incentives as domestic brands. This year Asian companies have spent an average of $1,572 per vehicle on incentives, compared to $3,473 per vehicle spent by GM, Ford, and DaimlerChrylser. This is a 14.4% increase in spending by the Asian brands and a 7.6% decrease in spending by the domestic brands.

"By stepping up incentives just as the Big Three are trying to ease back, the foreign automakers are successfully stealing away precious market share," Merrill Lynch analyst John Casesa told the Detroit Free Press.