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Thailand: Car sales set for another down year
Thailand is expected to end the year with domestic car sales of 750,000 units after bookings at the latest motor show were weaker than expected.
Surapong Paisitpatanapong, a spokesman for the Federation of Thai Industries’ automotive club, said that based on buying sentiment at the latest motor show, it is highly likely that Thai car sales are looking at another year of contraction, down 6.2% from 799,592 sold last year.
Domestic car sales tallied 1.45 million units in 2012, driven by a tax break on first-time car purchases and strong demand after floods hit several provinces in 2011.
Sales fell to 1.33 million in 2013, 881,832 in 2014 and 799,592 in 2015. For the first 10 months of 2016, sales edged down 0.7% year-on-year to 617,159 units.
The automotive club will report car sales for November on Dec 21. Mr Surapong expects sales of 62,000-63,000 units last month.
Yesterday, Inter-Media Consultant Co, the organiser of Thailand International Motor Expo 2016, said vehicle bookings tallied 40,364 from Nov 30-Dec 12, including the press day, down 10.1% from last year’s show. Of the total, 32,422 cars were booked, down 17.1%, while motorcycle bookings shot up 38.2% to 7,942.
Chalatchai Paphatphong, vice-president of Inter-Media Consultant, said that while car bookings at the event failed to hit the organiser’s expectation of 50,000 units, most distributors expressed satisfaction with the figures given the current situation.
Toyota saw the most booking at 5,124 units, followed by Honda (4,902), Isuzu (3,620), Mazda (3,434) and Ford (2,441).
Mercedes-Benz secured the most bookings in the luxury segment with 1,722, while BMW came second with 979 units (excluding the Mini).
Mr Chalatchai said motorcycle bookings fared better that expectations, led by GPX (1,109), Vespa (1,059), Yamaha (1,040), Honda (791) and Stallions (722).
He said the average car price at the latest event was up 2.7% at 1.178 million baht, but visitors during the 12 days fell by 19.3% to 1.19 million and money circulation fell by 10% to 45 billion baht.
Source: http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/news/1158841/car-sales-set-for-another-down-year